Rapid synthesis of vertically aligned α-MoO nanostructures on substrates.

We report a new procedure for large scale, reproducible and fast synthesis of polycrystalline, dense, vertically aligned α-MoO nanostructures on conducting (FTO) and non-conducting substrates (Si/SiO) by using a simple, low-cost hydrothermal technique. The synthesis method consists of two steps, firstly formation of a thermally evaporated Cr/MoO seed layer, and secondly growth of the nanostructures in a highly acidic precursor solution. In this report, we document a growth process of vertically aligned α-MoO nanostructures with varying growth parameters, such as pH and precursor concentration influencing the resulting structure.

Role of the Metal-Oxide Work Function on Photocurrent Generation in Hybrid Solar Cells.

ZnO is a widely used metal-oxide semiconductor for photovoltaic application. In solar cell heterostructures they not only serve as a charge selective contact, but also act as electron acceptor. Although ZnO offers a suitable interface for exciton dissociation, charge separation efficiencies have stayed rather poor and conceptual differences to organic acceptors are rarely investigated.

Humidity versus photo-stability of metal halide perovskite films in a polymer matrix.

Despite the high efficiency of over 21% reported for emerging thin film perovskite solar cells, one of the key issues prior to their commercial deployment is to attain their long term stability under ambient and outdoor conditions. The instability in perovskite is widely conceived to be humidity induced due to the water solubility of its initial precursors, which leads to decomposition of the perovskite crystal structure; however, we note that humidity alone is not the major degradation factor and it is rather the photon dose in combination with humidity exposure that triggers the instability. In our experiment, which is designed to decouple the effect of humidity and light on perovskite degradation, we investigate the shelf-lifetime of CH3NH3PbI3 films in the dark and under illumination under high humidity conditions (Rel.

Highly Efficient Reproducible Perovskite Solar Cells Prepared by Low-Temperature Processing.

Unlabelled: In this work, we describe the role of the different layers in perovskite solar cells to achieve reproducible, ~16% efficient perovskite solar cells. We used a planar device architecture with

Pedot: PSS on the bottom, followed by the perovskite layer and an evaporated C60 layer before deposition of the top electrode. No high temperature annealing step is needed, which also allows processing on flexible plastic substrates.

Effect of ZnO nanoparticle properties on dye-sensitized solar cell performance.

We have investigated the effect of ZnO nanoparticle properties on the dye-sensitized solar cell performance. Nanoparticles with different sizes and optical properties were considered. We found that there is a complex relationship between native defects, dye adsorption, charge transport and solar cell performance.