Study the Optical and Structural Properties of Cu-doped ZnO Thin Films for Solar Energy Applications

Researchers are very much eager to exploit renewable energy whereas non-renewable energy is decreasing day by day. Moreover, non-renewable energy is not suited for the environment due to emission of CO
2
as well as global warming is another problem. Solar energy is the vital candidate to attain the goal due to their availability, clean and this is environmental friendly. In this work, Undoped and copper doped zinc oxide (ZnO) thin films have been prepared on glass substrate by sol-gel spin coating method. In order to improve the crystalline quality and stoichiometry, as-deposited films were further annealed at 400°C in air for 1 hr. FT-IR Spectroscopy, XRD and UV—Visible Spectroscopy have been used in the present study to understand the variation of structural, electrical and optical properties with doping concentration. Structural analysis reveals the polycrystalline nature of the bare-ZnO thin films. Cu doped ZnO thin films also showed the polycrystalline nature with decreased crystallite size upon increasing the doping concentrations of the thin films. Finally FTO/ZnO/ZnO:Cu device structure have been fabricated on FTO coated glass substrate and I-V characteristics of FTO/ZnO/ZnO:Cu device structure shows rectifying performance with very high leakage.