Annealing effect on photovoltaic performance of CdSe quantum-dots-sensitized TiO 2 nanorod solar cells

By Yitan Li, Lin Wei, Ruizi Zhang, Yanxue Chen, J. Jiao. 2012

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Large area rutile TiO2 nanorod arrays were grown on F:SnO2 (FTO) conductive glass using a hydrothermal method at low temperature. CdSe quantum dots (QDs) were deposited onto single-crystalline TiO2 nanorod arrays by a chemical bath deposition (CBD) method to make a photoelectrode. The solar cell was assembled using a CdSe-TiO2 nanostructure as the photoanode and polysulfide solution as the electrolyte. The annealing effect on optical and photovoltaic properties of CdSe quantum-dotssensitized TiO2 nanorod solar cells was studied systematically. A significant change of the morphology and a regular red shift of band gap of CdSe nanoparticles were observed after annealing treatment. At the same time, an improved photovoltaic performance was obtained for quantum-dots-sensitized solar cell using the annealed CdSe-TiO2 nanostructure electrode. The power conversion efficiency improved from 0.59% to 1.45% as a consequence of the annealing effect. This improvement can be explained by considering the changes in the morphology, the crystalline quality, and the optical properties caused by annealing treatment.

Subfields: Materials Chemistry, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/78bdc8cb13cbb70e97081b807fe20273ea05d44f