Synthesis of high quality zinc-blende CdSe nanocrystals and their application in hybridsolar cells

Abstract

Oleic acid (OA) modified zinc-blende cadmium selenium nanocrystals (NCs) with differentdiameters, 3–5 nm, have been prepared. We find that the morphology and fluorescentproperties of the samples are related to the preparation conditions such as the chain-lengthand concentration of the cadmium precursor as well as the concentration of OA. Thehybrid solar cells based on the obtained spherical CdSe NCs as an acceptor andPoly(2-methoxy-5-(2′-ethylhexoxy)-p-phenylenevinylene) (MEH-PPV) as a donor show an energy conversion efficiency (ECE) ashigh as 0.85%, three times higher than that reported before for spherical CdSeNCs/conjugated polymer hybrid solar cells. When poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) is usedas the donor phase instead of MEH-PPV, the energy conversion efficiency increases up to1.08%. The solar cell based on CdSe NCs/conjugated polymer has the potential to open upnew production technologies for hybrid solar cells based on semiconductor NCs.