Carbon@Tellurium Nanostructures Anchored to a Si Nanowire Scaffold with an Unprecedented Liquid-Junction Solar Cell Performance.

Silicon nanowire (SiNW) arrays offer a range of exciting opportunities, from maximizing solar spectrum utilization for high-performance liquid-junction solar cells (LJSCs) to functioning as potential micro-supercapacitors in the near future. This work, contrasting strongly with the previously reported studies on SiNW-based LJSCs where electron-conducting nanoparticles of Pt or Au were employed to achieve high efficiencies, aims at tethering relatively inexpensive, hole-conducting, and photoresponsive carbon-coated tellurium nanorods (C@TeNRs) to SiNWs in the quest to achieve an outstanding solar cell performance. A SiNW LJSC (control cell) with a SiNWs/Br, Br/carbon-fabric architecture delivers a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 4.

New Antimony Selenide/Nickel Oxide Photocathode Boosts the Efficiency of Graphene Quantum-Dot Co-Sensitized Solar Cells.

A novel assembly of a photocathode and a photoanode is investigated to explore their complementary effects in enhancing the photovoltaic performance of a quantum-dot solar cell (QDSC). While p-type nickel oxide (NiO) has been used previously, antimony selenide (SbSe) has not been used in a QDSC, especially as a component of a counter electrode (CE) architecture that doubles as the photocathode. Here, near-infrared (NIR) light-absorbing SbSe nanoparticles (NPs) coated over electrodeposited NiO nanofibers on a carbon (C) fabric substrate was employed as the highly efficient photocathode.

Stability, Scale-up, and Performance of Quantum Dot Solar Cells with Carbonate-Treated Titanium Oxide Films.

A novel yet simple approach of carbonate (CBN) treatment of TiO films is performed, and quantum dot solar cells (QDSCs) with high power conversion efficiencies (PCEs), reasonably good stabilities, and good fill factors (FFs) are fabricated with TiO-CBN films. The ability of carbonate groups to passivate defects or oxygen vacancies of TiO is confirmed from a nominally enhanced band gap, a lowered defect induced fluorescence intensity, an additional Ti-OH signal obtained after carbonate decomposition, and a more capacitive low frequency electrochemical impedance behavior achieved for TiO-CBN compared to untreated TiO. A large area QDSC of 1 cm with a TiO-CBN/CdS/Au@PAA (poly(acrylic acid)) photoanode delivers an enhanced PCE of 4.

Titanium oxide morphology controls charge collection efficiency in quantum dot solar cells.

Charge transfer at the TiO/quantum dots (QDs) interface, charge collection at the TiO/QDs/current collector (FTO or SnO:F) interface, and back electron transfer at the TiO/QDs/S interface are processes controlled by the electron transport layer or TiO. These key processes control the power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of quantum dot solar cells (QDSCs). Here, four TiO morphologies, porous nanoparticles (PNPs), nanowires (NWs), nanosheets (NSHs) and nanoparticles (NPs), were sensitized with CdS and the photovoltaic performances were compared.

Counter Electrode Impact on Quantum Dot Solar Cell Efficiencies.

The counter electrode (CE), despite being as relevant as the photoanode in a quantum dot solar cell (QDSC), has hardly received the scientific attention it deserves. In this study, nine CEs (single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs), tungsten oxide (WO), poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT), copper sulfide (CuS), candle soot, functionalized multiwalled carbon nanotubes (F-MWCNTs), reduced tungsten oxide (WO), carbon fabric (C-Fabric), and C-Fabric/WO) were prepared by using low-cost components and facile procedures. QDSCs were fabricated with a TiO/CdS film which served as a common photoanode for all CEs.