Mono-(Cu, N) and Co-(Cu-N) Doped Metal Oxide: A Smart UV-Protective Layer for Photoactive Devices

Most of the energy demands in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are met from the burning of fossil fuel resources. In accordance with Vision 2030 of the Kingdom, these sources need to be replaced by new and renewable sources of energy in the existing national energy portfolio. In this context, solar energy has become the center of interest for fulfilling energy demand in recent years. However, for solar cells, only the photon energy that matches with the absorber layer contributes to the effective power generation of the solar cell. Higher and lower energy wavelengths induce thermalization and absorption losses respectively which in turn introduce several subsequent problems including heating and degradation in the cell level. These additional consequences add up the extra cost to limit the cost below 1 per kWh along with efficiency decrease at elevated temperature. Therefore, it is important to maintain cell efficiency at a low cost to bring this technology within afford and reach as was projected in Vision 2030 of the Kingdom. Here in this proposal, a strategy has been devised to develop a smart UV-protective layer to deal with high temperature and accelerated heat build-up issues usually observed in photoactive devices. It is well-understood that optoelectronic properties of metal-doped zinc oxide (ZnO) depend on various factors such as type of dopants, deposition technique, oxygen incorporation during deposition, deposition temperature and post-deposition treatment. The following sequential steps are foreseen for the accomplishment of the proposed scope of work: 1. In the first phase, undoped and doped ZnO layers will be fabricated under controlled conditions. An optimization in the experimental setup will be carried out to tune dopant concentration using a systematic approach. Structural, optical and optoelectrical properties of as-fabricated layer will be characterized in detail to understand and integrate with photoactive devices. 2. In the second phase, DFT calculation will be carried out to understand the characteristics. The simulation results will be correlated with those obtained in experimental observations. 3. In the final phase, a prototype will be developed and performance evaluation of as-fabricated UV protective layer will be assessed and compared