Influence of Phase Change Material Concentration towards ZnO Thin Film for Solar Cell

Zinc oxide thin films are widely used as solar cell thin film. In this study, zinc oxide (ZnO) has been deposited by using sol-gel spin coated technique, and further will be implemented as the solar cell thin film. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) was deposited as the upper layer, which act as the phase change material (PCM) for the improvement purposes. Since PCM can reduce the operating temperature of solar cell, the percentage or concentration of PCM was varied in this study, in order to observe its influence towards ZnO thin film. Characteristics of ZnO composited with different PEG percentages were explored and compared. Percentage of PEG was varied from 10%-50%. Single ZnO and ZnO/PEG thin film were deposited with the same spin rotation, drying time and temperature, as well as annealing duration and temperature. ITO substrate was used since this thin film will be applied as the solar cell thin film. Physical, optical and structural properties of the deposited thin film were analyzed using FESEM, UV-Vis and XRD. Referring to the result obtained, the morphology structure of the deposited film changes when percentage of PEG increase, where the uniformity can be observed as the percentage increased. Besides, transmittance and absorbance behavior also affected by the percentage of the PEG, similar with the XRD spectra.