Novel preparation of Sb₂O₃:Ag/Si solar cell fabricated utilising thermal evaporation method: studies on structural, morphology microstructural, topographic imaging, optical, and electrical properties for photovoltaic cell based electronic device applications

Thin-film semiconductors based on Ag-doped Sb2O3 are promising prospects for the creation of future-generation high-efficiency, low-cost solar cell systems. This is due to their high absorption coefficient and good optical characteristics in the visible region of the solar spectrum. The thin film was optically characterised under various composition and deposition circumstances. Aside from the materials used in cell manufacture, the performance of solar cells is also affected by the deposition technique and parameters. In this study, thermal evaporation was used to create pure Sb2O3 and Sb2O3 doped with Ag thin films with different thicknesses (18, 25, 28, 32, and 36) nm. The X-ray diffraction examination revealed that all of the films were polycrystalline, in nature with a strong (400) plane as the preferred orientation, The importance of Sb2O3:Ag thin film is the change of band gap when incorporating Ag into the Sb2O3, the optical measurements show that the pure and doped Ag thin films allowed a direct energy gap that was decreased from 3.2 eV at thickness 18 nm to 3.1 eV at thickness 36 nm for Sb2O3:0.006%Ag. This shift in the energy gap suggests using Sb2O3:Ag thin film for solar cell applications. While the absorbance of thin films increased as Ag-doped content increased, making these films more suitable for solar cell fabrication.