Improvement in optical and structural properties of ZnO thin film through hexagonal nanopillar formation to improve the efficiency of a Si–ZnO heterojunction solar cell

We propose to use ZnO thin film with hexagonal nanopillars deposited on Si substrate to enhance the efficiency of a solar cell. It has been treated chemically and thermally and various crystal orientations have been obtained. X-ray diffraction of ZnO thin film shows relatively high intensity peak at 34.3° angle (0 0 2) compared to other orientations. Photoluminescence measurements also confirm a narrow full width at half maximum peak at 3.3 eV, which is more than that obtained for as-grown (broad emission peak around 3.0 eV). The alignment of nanorod structure made by adding a dopant of 0.15 mole fraction of magnesium increases both photon collection and electron collection efficiency. As a result, the solar cell efficiency is enhanced from 10% to 20%. (paper)