Control of native acceptor density in epitaxial Cu2O thin films grown by electrochemical deposition

Controlling the native carrier is essential for using Cu2O in devices such as solar cells. The origin of the native p-type carrier in Cu2O is thought to be copper vacancies (VCu). In this work, epitaxially grown Cu2O thin films were prepared by electrochemical deposition at a low temperature of 45 °C on a Pt (111) cathodic electrode. The sources of Cu and O for Cu2O were Cu2+ and OH− in the electrolyte and the ion concentrations were changed to control the stoichiometry of deposition and the density of VCu. The density of ionized acceptors (NA+) in the Cu2O films was evaluated by the C-V properties measured with Schottky electrodes. NA+ did not depend on [Cu2+], whereas NA+ increased with increasing [OH−] when [OH−] was larger than 10−3 mol/L (electrolyte pH >11) with [Cu2+] fixed at 10−1 mol/L. The ion concentration dependence of NA+ and the dependence of the total cathodic current density revealed that the generation of VCu was affected by a complex combination of the ion concentrations and film growth rate.