Transparent Conducting Oxide TCO Monolayer-Grown Photonic Cell: A Renewable Energy Device for the Future

The increasing use of photonic effect cells raised cost, material leakage and environmental issues. During the last three decades, at least four generations of photonic effect cells have competed in order to satisfy growing demands. In this paper, we describe a photonic-effect cell, created from a single metal oxide inside the framework of some recent patents. The presented device is based on a 1μm-thick TCO (Transparent Conducting Oxides) layer deposited by a simple pyrolysis spray setup. This layer, subjected to two successive in situ treatments, is transformed into an n-p junction. The abundance of the used materials, compounds stability, as well as the fabrication low cost, make the realization of serial modules of this cell feasible.