Investigation on optoelectronic response of crystalline copper nitride (CuxN) thin film semiconducting material
摘要
The present study represents a modern computational analysis of optoelectronic response of crystalline, nanostructured copper nitride (CuxN) semiconducting material fabricated by a simple, low-cost spray pyrolysis technique that can be adopted in places lagging high-grade fabrication infrastructure. The optical spectroscopy data of the fabricated thin film was provided as input to Oghma-Nano software for carrying out numerical simulations. The variation in photoconductive response by tuning film thickness from 50 μm to 50 nm and 50 Å at different light intensities was observed. The best photoconductive performance was observed for 50 nm film with total charge density of 3 × 1025 C m−3, cut-in voltage of 1.4 V, recombination prefactor of 1.2 × 10–24 m−6 s−1 and carrier generation rate of 2.5 × 1036 m−3 s−1, respectively. These values were compatible with those of conventional semiconductors like Si, GaAs and CdTe, respectively. The feasibility of 50 nm CuxN film in photovoltaic applications was probed by modelling a device by using it as absorber and window layers in combination with various inorganic semiconductors as mentioned in the text of this paper. The best photovoltaic characteristics and parameters were noted for the solar cell with CuxN as absorber layer and CdS as window layer. This CdS–CuxN solar cell exhibited maximum current density of 9.98 A m−2, maximum power density of 89.32 W m−2, fill factor of 0.85, photoconversion efficiency of 8.93% etc. which are compatible with experimental results of other conventional CdS-based solar cells like CdS–Cu2S, CdS–PbS, CdS–CdTe. Optoelectronic performance analysis for various device applications using present technique is simple and can be adopted in places lagging high-grade fabrication and characterization infrastructure.