Abstract
Films of p-CuO were deposited on glass and n-Si substrates through reactive magnetron sputtering. The influence of flow rate ratio of O-2 to Ar on the structural and electrical properties of the CuO films was studied. By increasing the flow rate ratio, the hole concentration of the CuO films decreased while the mobility and resistivity increase. At a flow rate ratio of 0.5, the average crystal size, hole concentration, mobility, resistivity, and optical bandgap of the deposited p-CuO films are similar to 8 nm, 2.76 x 10(15) cm(-3), 0.134 cm(2)/Vs, 0.217 Omega cm, and 1.07 eV, respectively. A p-CuO film/n-Si substrate heterojunction cell has been fabricated and has an open-circuit voltage of 0.33V and short-circuit current density of 6.27 mA/cm(2) under AM 1.5D illumination. The fill factor and energy conversion efficiency are 0.2 and 0.41%, respectively. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4704382]