Simulation and numerical modeling of CuO films thickness influence on the efficiency of graphite/CuO/Ni solar cells

Copper oxide is one of the original semiconductor materials employed for solar cells in the early 19th century before Silicon solar cells became popular due to their abundant availability, and eco-friendly nature. The optoelectronic parameters signify its huge potential in solar cell devices, though it's far from the theoretically predicted performance, provides tremendous scope to improve the solar cell performance by forming different heterojunctions. In this study, we investigated the copper oxide's (CuO) potential as an active layer in thin-film solar cells theoretically with a new structure consisting of a Glass/ITO/Graphite/CuO/Ni. Furthermore, the charge carrier's generation rate and theoretical thresholds for photovoltaic device efficiency were determined for varying active layer thicknesses by employing a normalized light intensity equivalent to that of the AM1.5 spectrum. The optimized performance of the simulated structure by considering realistic optical parameters of the solar cell was ~24%, obtained for the 500 nm CuO films. The performed theoretical work can help to employ CuO and boost the performance of solar cells experimentally.