Fabrication of Silicon Nanoparticles Doped Cupric Oxide Thin Films by Spin Coating

The fabrication of Silicon Nanoparticles (Si-NPs) doped Cupric Oxide (Si-NPs-CuO) thin films and study of their optical properties have been presented in this paper. Silicon Nanoparticles was obtained from the Si powder extracted from the sand of the Padma river by mechanical milling. Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX) on the thin-film confirmed the presence of Si-NPs. The size of the obtained Si-NPs was determined by Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS) technique. The doping of CuO with Si-NPs was done using simple one-pot synthesis method. Three, five and seven layers of Si-NPs doped CuO were deposited on glass substrate and then were annealed at 350 °C. It was found that the optical absorbance of Si-NPs-CuO thin films increased compared to similar thickness of CuO thin films. Whereas the reduced transmittance was observed for Si-NPs-CuO thin films compared to CuO thin films. Experimental observations indicate that Si-NPs-CuO thin films could be an efficient absorbing layer in thin-film solar cells.