ZnO Hierarchical Nanostructure Photoanode in a CdS Quantum Dot-Sensitized Solar Cell

A hierarchical array of ZnO nanocones covered with ZnO nanospikes was hydrothermally fabricated and employed as the photoanode in a CdS quantum dot-sensitized solar cell (QDSSC). This QDSSC outperformed the QDSSC based on a simple ZnO nanocone photoanode in all the four principal photovoltaic parame...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2015-09, Vol.10 (9), p.e0138298-e0138298
Main Authors: Liu, Huan, Zhang, Gengmin, Sun, Wentao, Shen, Ziyong, Shi, Mingji
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Arrays
Cadmium Compounds - chemistry
Cadmium sulfide
Cadmium sulfides
Chemistry
Electrodes
Electrolytes
Ethanol
Glass substrates
Laboratories
Metal oxides
Microscopy
Nanostructures
Nanowires
Nitrates
Open circuit voltage
Photoanodes
Photovoltaic cells
Photovoltaics
Physics
Quantum Dots
Recombination
Short circuit currents
Short circuits
Solar cells
Solar Energy
Solar energy industry
Sulfides - chemistry
Zinc oxide
Zinc Oxide - chemistry
Zinc oxides
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Summary:A hierarchical array of ZnO nanocones covered with ZnO nanospikes was hydrothermally fabricated and employed as the photoanode in a CdS quantum dot-sensitized solar cell (QDSSC). This QDSSC outperformed the QDSSC based on a simple ZnO nanocone photoanode in all the four principal photovoltaic parameters. Using the hierarchical photoanode dramatically increased the short circuit current density and also slightly raised the open circuit voltage and the fill factor. As a result, the conversion efficiency of the QDSSC based on the hierarchical photoanode was more than twice that of the QDSSC based on the simple ZnO nanocone photoanode. This improvement is attributable to both the enlarged specific area of the photoanode and the reduction in the recombination of the photoexcited electrons.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0138298