Heteroepitaxial Cu2O thin film solar cell on metallic substrates

Heteroepitaxial, single-crystal-like Cu2O films on inexpensive, flexible, metallic substrates can potentially be used as absorber layers for fabrication of low-cost, high-performance, non-toxic, earth-abundant solar cells. Here, we report epitaxial growth of Cu2O films on low cost, flexible, textured metallic substrates. Cu2O films were deposited on the metallic templates via pulsed laser deposition under various processing conditions to study the influence of processing parameters on the structural and electronic properties of the films. It is found that pure, epitaxial Cu2O phase without any trace of CuO phase is only formed in a limited deposition window of P(O2) - temperature. The (00l) single-oriented, highly textured, Cu2O films deposited under optimum P(O2) - temperature conditions exhibit excellent electronic properties with carrier mobility in the range of 40-60 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1) and carrier concentration over 10(16) cm(-3). The power conversion efficiency of 1.65% is demonstrated from a proof-of-concept Cu2O solar cell based on epitaxial Cu2O film prepared on the textured metal substrate.