Abstract
Developing a noble metal-based solar energy conversion device is important in energy research. Again, nanocomposites consisting metal oxide-organic framework have received tremendous attention due to their excellent charge carrier transportability. Here, we have designed a nanocomposite by mixing π-conjugated sp2 hybridized g-C3N4 with ZnWO4 nanorods in which, Cu has been loaded. The red shift of the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) peak of Cu in case of g-C3N4/Cu/ZnWO4 (CCZ) is reflected in the photoluminescence (PL) lifetime data [CCZ (τ = 8.1 ns) > ZnWO4 (τ = 6.6 ns)]. Also, the PL intensity is found to get diminished for the composite owing to the delocalization of photoexcited electrons from the conduction band of g-C3N4 to the plasmonic metal (reservoir) through ZnWO4. Thin-film semiconductor (SC) photovoltaic (PV) devices on ITO coated surface have been successfully fabricated by spin coating the as-synthesized nanocomposites in conjunction with PEDOT: PSS and the power conversion efficiency (PCE) got improved from 1.8% (ZnWO4) to 8.4% (CCZ). Further, incident photon to current conversion efficiency (IPCE) for as-designed devices were obtained to be 73% (CCZ) > 47% (g-C3N4/ZnWO4) > 10% (ZnWO4) at 475 nm. In addition, CCZ has demonstrated high thermal stability without affecting the PCE value.
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