Development of Ferroelectric Solar Cells of Barium Strontium Titanate (BaxSr1-xTiO3) for Subtituting Conventional Battery in LAPAN-IPB Satellite (LISAT)

Semiconductor based solar cell or photovoltaic cell can be defined as a device that used to convert solar radiation into electrical energy directly. In this study, BST (Barium Strontium Titanate) semiconductor has been manufactured by sol-gel method and with spin coating process. Various mole fractions (x) of 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, and 0.8 were conducted in this study. Annealing hold time was conducted for 29 hours at constant temperature of 850 °C. After the BST film formation is completed, it would be followed by optical characteristics testing, electrical conductivity measurement and current-voltage photovoltaic testing of the BST ferroelectric solar cells. The efficiency of BST ferroelectric solar cells was calculated through the computation program, which was developed by using Matlab. In the program, the Psi, ɛ0, cp, and C values of BST are input data in the Matlab's command window. As the results, the BST has Psi, ɛ0, cp, and C values of 7.66 μC.cm-2, 8.854 x 10-16 C2.N-1.cm-2, 2.5 x 106 J.m-3.K-1, and 1300 °C or 1.573 x 103 K, respectively. Regarding to the values, the efficiency of BST ferroelectric solar cell was 6.2%. Moreover, in the laboratory, the efficiency of ferroelectric solar cells of BST was 0.000014285%, so it needs several developments for improving the efficiency. However, the BST ferroelectric solar cell has potential application in satellite technology for subtituting conventional battery.