Design of Aluminum Doped ZnO/Phenyl-C-Butyric Acid Methyl Ester/Tungsten Disulfide (AZO/PCBM/WS₂) Heterojunction-Based Device for Applications in Solar Cells and Broadband Self-Powered Photodetectors

The domain related to the use of renewable energy is showing high interest among the researchers in the current days, and light energy can be considered as one of such. Solar cells are the kind of devices that use light energy in an efficient way to generate electricity. Hence, designing and developing a solar cell requires meticulous attention to get an optimum output. This work focuses on designing and optimization of aluminum dope ZnO/phenyl-C-butyric acid methyl ester/tungsten disulfide (AZO/PCBM/WS2) heterojunction-based device for applications in solar cells. Moreover, considering the high demand of optoelectronics like photodetectors, this work also uncovers the capabilities of the device in the applications of broadband self-powered photodetectors. The optimized values of several parameters of the device such as the thickness and doping density of the WS2 layer, the defect density of the WS2 layer, and the interface PCBM/WS2 were 2 mu m, 10(17) cm(-3), 10(14) cm(-3), and 10(10) cm(-2), respectively. These optimal conditions facilitated in obtaining fill factor and efficiency values of 84.78 and 23.92%, respectively. Further, the photodetection performance was evaluated with the parameters like responsivity and detectivity. The maximum calculated responsivity of the device at 0 V bias was 0.63 A/W at 880 nm, whereas the maximum detectivity was 1.54 x 10(13) Jones. This study also extensively focuses on the in-depth understanding of the physics associated with the movement of the charge carriers under the illuminated conditions by studying the band diagrams and the electric fields of the heterojunctions at various conditions.