The investigation of chemically deposited Cu3BiS3 into mesoporous TiO2 films for the application of semiconductor-sensitized solar cells

Abstract

This study aimed to synthesize Cu3BiS3 semiconductor using chemical bath deposition (CBD) method and to investigate its application on semiconductor-sensitized solar cells using mesoporous TiO2 films. The Cu3Bi1S3 semiconductor was synthesized using two-step chemical deposition onto mesoporous TiO2 film: the deposition of Bi-S and the deposition of Cu-S. The formation of Cu3Bi1S3, proved by the XRD pattern, was achieved after annealed at 350°C for 1 hour in the nitrogen atmosphere. The band gap was measured using UV-Visible spectrophotometer and found to be 1.4 eV, an optimal band gap for solar cells application. Such process was then applied to produce liquid- junction semiconductor-sensitized solar cells. The observation involved were the dependence of solar cells on the use of different electrolytes, different solar cells’ structure, different particle sizes of mesoporous TiO2 film and different deposition time. The best solar cell obtained has power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 0.139% with current density of 6.09 mA/cm2. This result indicates that CBD method can be used to synthesize Cu3BiS3 semiconductor into mesoporous TiO2 and further study needs to be done to search for the best solar cells’ structure to obtain higher PCE from Cu3BiS3 semiconductor.