P-Cu ₂O/n-ZnO nanowires on ITO glass for solar cells

In this paper, the fabrication and characterization of a heterojunction solar cell based on p-Cu ₂O/ n-ZnO nanowires on ITO glass are presented. ZnO aligned nanocrystal seed layer is firstly prepared by RE magnetron sputtering technique, and then vertical ZnO nanowire arrays with an acicular crystal structure are obtained by using a chemical bath deposition processing. The results indicate that the ZnO nanowires with a diameter of about 50 nm and 500 nm in length can be easily obtained. The absorption and transmittance of the ZnO nanowires are studied. It is also noted that the Cu ₂O can fill well into the space between ZnO nanowires by an electrodeposition process. Eurthermore, the effect of the Cu ₂O orientation on the cell performance is also presented.