Investigation on Interfacial Charge Transfer Process in CdSe x Te 1-x Alloyed Quantum Dot Sensitized Solar Cells

Spray Coated Colloidal Quantum Dot Films for Broadband Photodetectors

A technique for scalable spray coating of colloidal CdSeTe quantum dots (QDs) for photovoltaics and photodetector applications is presented. A mixture solvent with water and ethanol was introduced to enhance the adhesive force between QDs and the substrate interface. The performance of the detector reached the highest values with 40 spray coating cycles of QD deposition. The photodetectors without bias voltage showed broadband response in the wavelength range of 300–800 nm, and high responsivity of 15 mA/W, detectivity of more than 10¹¹ Jones and rise time of 0.04 s. A large size QD-logo pattern film (10 × 10 cm²) prepared by the spray coating process displayed excellent uniformity of thickness and absorbance. The large area detectors (the active area 1 cm²) showed almost the same performance as the typical laboratory-size ones (the active area 0.1 cm²). Our study demonstrates that the spray coating is a very promising film fabrication technology for the industrial-scale production of optoelectronic devices.

Surface Engineering of Quantum Dots for Remarkably High Detectivity Photodetectors

Ternary alloyed CdSe _xTe_{1- x} colloidal QDs trap-passivated by iodide-based ligands (TBAI) are developed as building blocks for UV-NIR photodetectors. Both the few surface traps and high loading of QDs are obtained by in situ ligand exchange with TBAI. The device is sensitive to a broad wavelength range covering the UV-NIR region (300-850 nm), showing an excellent photoresponsivity of 53 mA/W, a fast response time of ≪0.02s, and remarkably high detectivity values of 8 × 10¹³ Jones at 450 nm and 1 × 10¹³ Jones at 800 nm without an external bias voltage. Such performance is superior to what has been reported earlier for QD-based photodetectors. The photodetector exhibits excellent stability, keeping 98% of photoelectric responsivity after 2 months of illumination in air even without encapsulation. In addition, the semitransparent device is successfully fabricated using a Ag nanowires/polyimide transparent substrate. Such self-powered photodetectors with fast response speed and a stable, broad-band response are expected to function under a broad range of environmental conditions.

Inorganic Ligand Thiosulfate-Capped Quantum Dots for Efficient Quantum Dot Sensitized Solar Cells

The insulating nature of organic ligands containing long hydrocarbon tails brings forward serious limitations for presynthesized quantum dots (QDs) in photovoltaic applications. Replacing the initial organic hydrocarbon chain ligands with simple, cheap, and small inorganic ligands is regarded as an efficient strategy for improving the performance of the resulting photovoltaic devices. Herein, thiosulfate (S₂O₃^2-), and sulfide (S^2-) were employed as ligand-exchange reagents to get access to the inorganic ligand S₂O₃^2-- and S^2--capped CdSe QDs. The obtained inorganic ligand-capped QDs, together with the initial oleylamine-capped QDs, were used as light-absorbing materials in the construction of quantum dot sensitized solar cells (QDSCs). Photovoltaic results indicate that thiosulfate-capped QDs give excellent power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 6.11% under the illumination of full one sun, which is remarkably higher than those of sulfide- (3.36%) and OAm-capped QDs (0.84%) and is comparable to the state-of-the-art value based on mercaptocarboxylic acid capped QDs. Photoluminescence (PL) decay characterization demonstrates that thiosulfate-based QDSCs have a much-faster electron injection rate from QD to TiO₂ substrate in comparison with those of sulfide- and OAm-based QDSCs. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) results indicate that higher charge-recombination resistance between potoanode and eletrolyte interfaces were observed in the thiosulfate-based cells. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first application of thiosulfate-capped QDs in the fabrication of efficient QDSCs. This will lend a new perspective to boosting the performance of QDSCs furthermore.

Improvement in Open-Circuit Voltage of Thin Film Solar Cells from Aqueous Nanocrystals by Interface Engineering

In this work, improved solar cells from aqueous CdTe NCs is achieved by replacing evaporated MoOx with spiro-OMeTAD as a hole transfer layer. The increased Voc and Jsc can be attributed to interfacial dipole effect and reduced back recombination loss, respectively. A high PCE of 6.56% for solar cells from aqueous NCs is obtained by optimizing the microstructure further.