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Synthesis of ZnO Nanowires by Hydrothermal Technique for Integration Into Chalcopyrite Thin Films

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2012

H. Karaagac
Affiliation:
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California at Davis, Davis CA 95616, USA
M. Parlak
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, Middle East Technical University, 06531 Ankara, Turkey
M. Saif Islam
Affiliation:
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of California at Davis, Davis CA 95616, USA
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Abstract

Vertically oriented, highly dense ZnO nanowires (NWs) array was successfully grown on both glass and silicon substrates using hydrothermal technique. A systematic study was carried out to investigate the effects of growth parameters including growth time and thickness of ZnO seed layer on the quality of ZnO NWs in terms of their homogeneity and orientation in the vertical direction. The diameter as well as the length of grown ZnO NWs was found to be closely dependent on the thickness of the pre-coated ZnO seed layer. The structures of ZnO NWs and electron-beam evaporated AgGa0.5In0.5Se2 (AGIS) thin film have been characterized by X-ray diffraction measurements and optical properties were measured by transmission measurement. The optic band gap of AGIS thin film was found to be almost optimum (1.56 eV) to match the abundant part of solar cell spectrum. AGIS thin film was deposited on the synthesized ZnO NWs to form p-n heterojunction based inorganic solar cell, which exhibited photovoltaic behavior with a power conversion efficiency of 0.37 % under A.M (1.5) illumination.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2012

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References

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