A brief review and prospect of amorphous carbon and reduced graphene oxides derived from biomass as a low cost and new photovoltaic cell

Carbon-based solar cells have emerged as a promising alternative to conventional silicon photovoltaics due to their potential for low-cost, flexible, and sustainable energy solutions. These devices utilize carbon materials, such as graphene derivatives and amorphous carbon (a-C), which can be synthesized from abundant and renewable biomass resources. This article focuses on a brief review on p-n junction solar cell composed of p-type reduced graphene oxide (rGO) doped with boron (rGO:B) and n-type a-C doped with nitrogen (a-C:N), featuring band gap energies of 2.3 eV and 1.68 eV, respectively. With an efficiency of 0.068 %, this junction is comparable with the performance of a carbon-silicon (C/Si) configuration. The improved performance is attributed to more favorable band alignment. The low efficiency of the p-n junction solar cell is primarily due to low carrier density and mobility caused by structural disorder and defect-induced scattering. This associates with residual oxygen functional groups within the structures. Compared to the C/Si junctions, the use of carbon materials derived from biomass presents an environmentally friendly and potentially scalable solution for photovoltaic devices. Future efforts should focus on optimizing carrier, mobility, minimizing defects, and enhancing band alignment to maximize efficiency and drive further advancements in sustainable carbon-based solar cells.