Energies (Jul 2018)

ZnS/SiO2 Passivation Layer for High-Performance of TiO2/CuInS2 Quantum Dot Sensitized Solar Cells

  • Hee-Je Kim,
  • Jin-Ho Bae,
  • Hyunwoong Seo,
  • Masaharu Shiratani,
  • Chandu Venkata Veera Muralee Gopi

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3390/en11081931
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 8
p. 1931

Abstract

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Suppressing the charge recombination at the interface of photoanode/electrolyte is the crucial way to improve the quantum dot sensitized solar cells (QDSSCs) performance. In this scenario, ZnS/SiO2 blocking layer was deposited on TiO2/CuInS2 QDs to inhibit the charge recombination at photoanode/electrolyte interface. As a result, the TiO2/CuInS2/ZnS/SiO2 based QDSSCs delivers a power conversion efficiency (η) value of 4.63%, which is much higher than the TiO2/CuInS2 (2.15%) and TiO2/CuInS2/ZnS (3.23%) based QDSSCs. Impedance spectroscopy and open circuit voltage decay analyses indicate that ZnS/SiO2 passivation layer on TiO2/CuInS2 suppress the charge recombination at the interface of photoanode/electrolyte and enhance the electron lifetime.

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