2 - Synthesis, properties, and applications of zinc sulfide for solar cells

Abstract

Zinc sulfide (ZnS) may be a semiconductor with a large bandgap that demonstrates several attention-grabbing phenomena, like size-induced absorption and visible lightweight emission, a short radiative time, etc. ZnS is one in every of the foremost studied host lattice within the field of phosphor technology. Advances in ZnS chemistry have recently shown the possibility that this material may well be proven effective for several potential applications if the scale of the material is reduced to nano-regime. It’s renowned that once the electronic wave functions are affected by the scale limits, the development of quantum confinement happens. In many analysis areas, like semiconductors, optoelectronics, and solar cells, the longer-term applications of quantum-confined ZnS are expected to dominate material production within the next decade. As of now, size-controlled ZnS has been successfully synthesized by several wet-chemical techniques. Sadly, the applying of ZnS material for photovoltaic cell application is feebly explored. This text highlights the controlled synthesis of ZnS and functionalization protocols to make it possible for explicit use in solar cells using typical synthesis techniques like one-pot synthesis, sol-gel, solvothermal, and solid-state reactions. Further, the obtained ZnS are utilized as key materials in the fabrication of dye-sensitized solar cells and Cu(In,Ga)Se2-based thin-film solar cells specifically. The challenges featured throughout the fabrication of the solar cells will also be mentioned thoroughly.