Impact of post annealing and hydrogen implantation on functional properties of Cu2O thin films for photovoltaic applications

Polycrystalline cuprous oxide (Cu2O) thin films were sputtered, annealed (900 °C rapid thermal annealing) and subsequently implanted with various hydrogen ion (H+) doses from 5E13 to 2E15 cm−2 with a low acceleration energy of 36 keV at room temperature to tailor the functional properties of the thin films for solar cell application. The annealed and H+ implanted Cu2O thin films were post annealed at low temperatures from 100 °C to 600 °C in an inert atmosphere to promote hydrogen passivation of prevalent intrinsic acceptors and tune the carrier concentration for optimum performance as an absorption layer in a heterojunction solar cell. The H+ incorporation and post annealing tuned the structural, optical and electrical properties of annealed polycrystalline Cu2O thin films. The results show an enhancement of the excitonic feature around ∼2.0 eV with H+ dose. The normalized photoluminescence (PL) area around ∼1.7 eV was drastically enhanced with increasing H+ doses compared to excitonic and copper vacancy related area. The normalized total PL quantum efficiency shows an enhancement in yield with elevated H+ doses by two orders of magnitude. The hole concentration decreases down to ∼1013 cm−3, while hole mobility and resistivity increase to ∼27 cm2/V and ∼2.4 kΩcm, respectively, as the H+ implantation goes from lower to higher doses. In addition, the post annealing and H+ incorporation lead to a change in the energy level of the major acceptor from 0.21 eV to 0.27 eV above the valence band maximum. By following the qualitative (PL analysis) and quantitative (Hall data) outcomes, we can conclude that H+ implantation and post annealing likely indicates the passivation of both acceptor defects and compensating donor defects. •Impact of hydrogen implantation on functional properties of Cu2O thin films.•Impact of post annealing on optical and electrical properties of implanted thin films.•Tuning the carrier density, mobility and resistivity using hydrogen implantation.•Enhancement in photoluminescence excitonic feature of Cu2O thin films.•The passivation of both acceptor defects and compensating donor defects.