Facile In Situ Growth of Nanostructured Copper Sulfide Films Directly on FTO Coated Glass Substrates as Efficient Counter Electrodes for Quantum Dot Sensitized Solar Cells

Abstract

AbstractWe report a facile chemical solution deposition method for fabricating nanostructured copper sulfide film directly on fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) coated glass substrates and demonstrate its use as efficient counter electrodes in quantum dot based solar cells. A typical quantum dot sensitized solar cell with CdS sensitized photo‐anode using this counter electrode shows ∼25% improvement in the power conversion efficiency when compared to the reference device assembled with conventional thermally evaporated gold/FTO counter electrode. The superior electrocatalytic activity of the copper sulfide electrode is also substantiated by potentiostatic I−V curves and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy.