7 - Photovoltaic application of carbon quantum dots

Abstract

Carbon quantum dots (CQDs) play a very significant role in photovoltaic applications because of their excellent optoelectronic properties such as bandgap tunability, excellent photostability, high photoluminescence, excellent conductivity, and robust chemical inertness. The CQDs have been extensively investigated in photovoltaic devices with various important roles such as a sensitizer, photon absorber, carrier transport layer, energy band shifter, etc. which significantly contributed to the enhancement of the device performances. Such overarching involvement of CQDs in photovoltaic devices has been due to their notable basic characteristics such as low toxicity, cheaper price, easy processability, and accessibility along with excellent material characteristics. In this chapter, application of CQDs in various types of solar cells such as dye-sensitized solar cells, organic solar cells, solid-state solar cells, and perovskite solar cells with different capacities have been discussed thoroughly. Various low-cost natural-extract-derived CQDs have been utilized in the fabrication of photovoltaic devices that are reviewed in this chapter. All-weather solar cells which are a growing topic of research have also been discussed in light of CQDs with future prospects of further improvement.