Elaboration and characterization of metal oxide nanostructures and their applications to optoelectronics

Abstract

The nanostructuration of solar cells is an interesting approach to improve the photovoltaic conversion efficiency (PCE), in which the main goal of this thesis is to enhance the performance of the electrodeposited 〖Cu〗_2 O and ZnO nanostructures for optoelectronic devices. Many key parameters effect are studied for both metal oxides to control their physical and electrochemical properties. Firstly, a comparative study between galvanostatic and potentiostatic mode for the ZnO nanosheets (ZnO_((NS))) and ZnO nanowires (ZnO_((NW))) is taken place. Secendly, Similar strategy was applied for 〖Cu〗_2 O nanostructures and 〖Cu〗_2 O nanoparticles. The structural, morphological, optical and electrochemical parameters were investigated for the synthesized ZnO and 〖Cu〗_2 O nanostructures, where they show good performance and high photoelectrochemical stability. Finaly, a heterojunction design ((〖p-Cu〗_2 O)⁄((n-ZnO_((NW)))⁄〖ZnO〗_((NS)) )) was proposed and exanimated under the different electrodeposition approaches. Whereas, n-ZnO_((NW)) ⁄(ZnO_((NS)) ) is the conductive layer in the heterojunction and 〖p-Cu〗_2 O is the absorber layer.