Influence of Physical Parameters on p-CuO/n-CdS/n-Zn2SnO4 Solar cell: A Numerical Investigation Achieving Efficiency of 28.50 % Using SCAPS-1D

Abstract

This work presents a comprehensive numerical investigation of CuO thin-film solar cells using SCAPS-1D, focusing on replacing conventional CdTe and CIGS absorber layers with environmentally friendly alternative CuO metal oxide. The simulation explores the influence of absorber, buffer and window layer thicknesses, as well as temperature on the key photovoltaic parameters of CuO-based devices. The optimization study shows that an absorber thickness of 4 µm maximizes light absorption without excessive recombination, while the buffer and window layers achieve optimal performance at 0.02 µm. The results indicate that increasing the temperature from 300 K to 400 K causes a gradual decline in efficiency from 21.62 % to 16.58 %. Furthermore, specific parameters of p-CuO/n-CdS/n-Zn₂SnO₄ heterostructure, such as the influence of defects density, acceptor concentration, metal work function, Rs and Rsh were examined. Our findings revealed that the efficiency could be improved by increasing the acceptor concentration of p-type CuO layer and metal work function of the contact and reduced defects density and balancing between R_s and R_sh. The optimized p-CuO/n-CdS/n-Zn₂SnO₄ configuration attains a high conversion efficiency of 28.50 % under AM 1.5 illumination, demonstrating that CuO solar cell can achieve competitive performance. This study provides valuable insights for the design of cost-effective, non-toxic, and high-efficiency photovoltaic devices.