In this study, titanium dioxide/copper oxide thin-film solar cells were prepared using the reactive direct-current magnetron sputtering technique. The influence of the deposition time of the top Cu contact layer on the structural and electrical properties of photovoltaic devices was analyzed. The structural and morphological characterization of the TiO₂/CuO/Cu₂O solar cells was fully studied using X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and current–voltage (I-V) characteristics. Additionally, using van der Pauw sample geometries, the electrical properties of the titanium dioxide and copper oxide layers were investigated. From the XRD study, solar cells were observed in cubic (Cu₂O), monoclinic (CuO), and Ti₃O₅ phases. In addition, the crystallite size and dislocation density for copper oxide layers were calculated. Basic morphological parameters (thickness, mechanism of growth, and composition of elements) were analyzed via scanning electron microscopy. The thicknesses of the titanium dioxide and copper oxide layers were in the range of 43–55 nm and 806–1223 nm, respectively. Furthermore, the mechanism of growth and the basic composition of the elements of layers were analyzed. The I-V characteristic curve confirms the photovoltaic behavior of two titanium dioxide/copper oxide thin-film structures. The values of short-circuit current density (J_sc) and open-circuit voltage (V_oc) of the solar cells were: 4.0 ± 0.8 µA/cm², 16.0 ± 4.8 mV and 0.43 ± 0.61 µA/cm², 0.54 ± 0.31 mV, respectively. In addition, the authors presented the values of I_sc, P_max, FF, and R_sh. Finally, the resistivity, carrier concentration, and mobility are reported for selected layers with values reflecting the current literature.

In this study, solar cells based on copper oxide and titanium dioxide were successfully manufactured using the reactive direct-current magnetron sputtering (DC-MS) technique with similar process parameters. TiO2/CuO, TiO2/Cu2O/CuO/Cu2O, and TiO2/Cu2O solar cells were manufactured via this process. Values of efficiencies, short-circuit current, short-circuit current density, open-circuit voltage, and maximum power of PV devices were investigated in the range of 0.02÷0.9%, 75÷350 µA, 75÷350 µA/cm2, 16÷550 mV, and 0.6÷27 µW, respectively. The authors compare solar cells reaching the best and the worst conversion efficiency results. Thus, only the two selected solar cells were fully characterized using I-V characteristics, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, ellipsometry, Hall effect measurements, and quantum efficiency. The best conversion efficiency of a solar cell presented in this work is about three times higher in comparison with the authors’ previous PV devices.

In this report, the morphological, optical, electrical, and photovoltaic properties of copper oxide and calcium-doped copper oxide thin films produced via the spray coating method were studied. The thermal post treatment at 300 °C in an inert atmosphere allowed us to obtain a single phase of Cu₂O with 21 Ωcm of resistivity (ρ). In this study, 1 wt%, 2 wt%, 3 wt%, 4 wt%, 5 wt%, and 10 wt% Ca admixtures with copper oxide were investigated. The determined optimal calcium dopant concentration was 4 wt%. XRD analysis was used to reveal the chemical composition of the produced layers. It was found that a calcium dopant does not change the layer composition but improves its electrical parameters. Based on UV-Vis spectra, the band gap energy and Urbach energy were calculated. The morphology of produced thin films was described as smooth and nanocrystalline, corresponding to a grain size calculated based on the Scherrer equation. Finally, it was shown that the developed protocol of low-resistivity copper oxide deposition via the spray coating technique can be successfully implemented in heterojunction solar cell production. The I–V parameters of Ag/n-type CzSi/REF:CuO_x and 4Ca:CuO_x/Carbon were collected, and the achieved efficiency was 2.38%.

We carry out Monte Carlo simulations of electron transport in 4H-silicon carbide (4H-SiC) based on the numerically calculated density of states (DOS) to obtain the electron mobility at low electric fields. From the results, it can be concluded that a correct calculation of the DOS requires a very dense wavevector k-mesh when low electron kinetic energies are considered. The crucial issue is the numerical efficiency of the DOS calculation. We investigate the scaling efficiency when different numbers of cores are used.