Abstract
A nanocrystal thin-film solar cell operating on an exciton splitting pattern requires a highly efficient separation of electron-hole pairs and transportation of separated charges. A hybrid bulk-heterojunction (HBH) nanostructure providing a large contact area and interpenetrated charge channels is favorable to an inorganic nanocrystal solar cell with high performance. For this freshly appeared structure, here in this work, we have firstly explored the influence of hybrid morphology on the photovoltaic performance of CdTe:CdSe bulk-heterojunction solar cells with variation in CdSe nanoparticle morphology. Quantum dot (QD) or nanotetrapod (NT)-shaped CdSe nanocrystals have been employed together with CdTe NTs to construct different hybrid structures. The solar cells with the two different hybrid active layers show obvious difference in photovoltaic performance. The hybrid structure with densely packed and continuously interpenetrated two phases generates superior morphological and electrical properties for more efficient inorganic bulk-heterojunction solar cells, which could be readily realized in the NTs:QDs hybrid. This proved strategy is applicable and promising in designing other highly efficient inorganic hybrid solar cells.
Highlights
Solar cells based on nanoparticles have attracted intense attention in view of their compatibility with the solution synthesis of materials, low-cost fabrication of devices, and large area flexibility
The skeleton of the two solar cells is firstly given in Figure 1a with the following structure: indium tin oxide (ITO)/TiO2/CdTe: CdSe/MoO3/Au
The energy level alignment of the solar cells is shown in Figure 1b where a type-II heterojunction at the CdTe: CdSe interface enables efficient exciton dissociation and charge transfer
Summary
Solar cells based on nanoparticles have attracted intense attention in view of their compatibility with the solution synthesis of materials, low-cost fabrication of devices, and large area flexibility. Compared with their counterparts of organic solar cells which possess these potentials, nanocrystal thin-film solar cells offer easy tuning of light response in a broad range by tuning the quantum size effect of colloidal nanoparticles. A focused investigation is carried out on the hybrid structure dependence of photovoltaic performance through variation in CdSe nanoparticle morphology while keeping the CdTe NTs unchanged. The charge dynamics behavior at the interface shows obvious difference in the two hybrids, which further results in variation in the photovoltaic performance of the two solar cells
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