Growth and characterization of Cu2O for solar cells applications

In this work, we investigated the effect of the deposition potential on the morphological, structural, and optical properties of Cu2O thin films prepared on FTO-coated glass substrates. The potentials of the electrodeposition are -0.3V, -0.4V, -0.5V. The deposition potentials were optimized by cyclic voltammetry experiment for a slow scan rate of 20mV/s. It has been found that the potential of electrodeposition has a significant influence on the Cu2O thin films. X-ray diffraction revealed that all thin films are crystallized in cubic phase for all potential with a preferential orientation (111). Scanning electron microscope (SEM) images explored significant variation on morphology of Cu2O thin films deposited with different applied potential. Transmittance in the visible range was found to be 60 to 80% for all samples. The energy gap of Cu2O films was found to be ~ 2-2.3 eV by optical measurements.