The influence of in situ deposition techniques on PbS seeded CdS/CdSe for enhancing the photovoltaic performance of quantum dot sensitized solar cells

Abstract

The deposition techniques of quantum dots (QDs) have great influence on the photovoltaic performances of quantum dot sensitised solar cells (QDSSCs). In this study, we report CdS/CdSe sensitised TiO2 solar cells focussing on the influence of two commonly used in situ QD deposition techniques (SILAR: successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction and CBD: chemical bath deposition). In addition to this, the QDSSC performance is enhanced due to better light harvesting capability of PbS quantum dots and makes large accumulation of photo-injected electrons in the conduction band of TiO2. When compared to power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 4.58% was obtained for PbS/CBD-CdS/CBD-CdSe cells when compared to PbS/SILAR-CdS/SILAR-CdSe. With chemical bath deposition, we achieved high surface coverage of QDs, which contributes to the increase in photocurrent,open circuit voltage and fill factor. Impedance spectroscopy revealed that the PbS/CBD-CdS/CBD-CdSe reduces recombination and increases charge collection efficiency and a long electron lifetime was achieved. To associate the assembling of QDs with the performance of QDSSCs a methodical characterization of morphology, optical and electro-chemical properties and its stability has been studied. We achieved PbS seeded CBD highlighting its robust consequences for the performance of QDSSCs.