Effect of thickness on photovoltaic properties of amorphous carbon/fullerene junction

Abstract

All-carbon photovoltaic devices have attracted attention in terms of resources and environment. However, the device application is very limited because of poor performance. In this work, we studied the solar cell characteristics of amorphous carbon (a–C)/fullerene (C60) junction when the thickness of the a–C layer was varied. When the thickness of the a–C layer was varied, the short-circuit current density and open-circuit voltage increased with increasing film thickness and then decreased after a certain value. Also, the spectral response measurement results suggest that most of the power generation is due to the light absorbed by the C60 layer, and that the light absorbed by the a–C layer may contribute little to power generation. This study suggests that the improvement in the electronic properties of a–C is necessary to make a photovoltaic device with high performance.