Engineering of the Metal Oxides Nanostructures for Solar Energy Harvesting

Semiconducting metal oxides have been utilized in various roles such as electron transport layer, hole transport layer, and active layer in solar cell. The capability of photo charge generation, separation, and recombination is governed by the quality of the metal oxide layer and eventually affect the solar cell efficiency. It is suggested that the materials used for charge transfer should have resistant to light, moisture, and heat to maintain long-term stability. Metal oxides are ideally designed charge transport materials due to its several favorable properties. Considering the technological significance of metal-oxides, various materials engineering concepts have been developed to improve the quality of metal oxide layers and the performance of solar cell. This chapter discusses application of metal oxides in solar cell in different roles. The important materials engineering concepts (improvement in crystalline properties, size morphological, doping, defect and formation of heterostructures) towards improvement in solar energy harvesting are also presented.