EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF PHOTOVOLTAIC PERFORMANCE OF SILICON SOLAR CELL BY USING COPPER DOPED TIO2 THIN FILM

In the present work Copper (Cu) is used as a dopant element in titanium dioxide (TiO2) crystal structure to enhance the photovoltaic performance of the silicon (Si) solar cells fabricated with TiO2 thin film. Highly ordered Copper doped TiO2 particles were synthesized by using hydrothermal method with different molar concentrations of 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, and 1.0% and by dispersing in 5 ml of ethanol. During this process Copper doped TiO2 layers were coated on mesoporous TiO2 films by spin coating process. The effect of Cu doping concentration on the photovoltaic performance of Si solar cell has been investigated. It is observed that power conversion efficiency of the Cu doped solar cells increased from 6.61% at 0.25% molar concentration to 8.86% at 0.5% molar concentration. Further it is observed that improvement in power conversion efficiency of the solar cells is superior with Cu doped TiO2 when compared with the solar cells doped with other elements viz., Zn, Fe, Eu, Al.