Photoelectric properties of reduced-graphene-oxide film and its photovoltaic application

Abstract

Graphene (Gr) film grown by the chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method has recently received intense attention in optoelectronic devices. As an alternative, the low cost graphene-oxide (GO) fabricated by a solution process is more promising for practical application. Here, we have fabricated a GO film on copper foil and then reduced it into a conductive film by high temperature annealing. It is found that the photoelectric properties of the reduced-graphene-oxide (r-GO) film are strongly dependent on the annealing temperature and film thickness. A thicker r-GO film under higher temperature annealing usually has better conductivity. By optimizing the reduction conditions of the GO films, the highest power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 3.36% can be achieved for a r-GO/Si solar cell. This value is currently the record efficiency for the r-GO/Si device architecture.