The large absorption coefficient of iron pyrite (FeS(2)) nanocrystals coupled with their low-cost and vast-abundance shows great promise as a potential photovoltaic absorber. Here, we demonstrate that bulk heterojunction (BHJ) nanostructures consisting of 80 nm FeS(2) nanocubes (NCs) and 4 nm CdS quantum dot (QD) matrix, lead to a well-defined percolation network, which significantly improved open-circuit voltage (V(oc)) to 0.79 V and power conversion efficiency of 1.1% under AM 1.5 solar illumination. The localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPRs) arising from p-type colloidal FeS(2) NCs exhibit plasmonic photoelectron conversion. Our approach can be applied to a wide range of colloidal nanocrystals exhibiting the LSPRs effect and is compatible with solution processing, thereby offering a general tactic to enhancing the efficiency of all inorganic BHJ solar cells and LSPRs-based NIR photodetectors.

Colloidal CdSe quantum dots show great promise for fabrication of hybrid solar cells with enhanced power conversion efficiency. Here, we demonstrate that gallium-, indium-, tin-doped CdSe quantum dots show significantly improved conductivity and charge carrier density, and also temperature dependent behavior. Furthermore, the doped CdSe hybrid solar cells greatly enhance photocurrent and photovoltage, in which the gallium doped CdSe quantum dots and P3HT bi-layer heterojunction solar cells leads to a maximum power conversion efficiency of 2.0% at elevated temperatures under AM 1.5 solar illumination. All the doped samples exhibit inverted temperature dependent power conversion of the photovoltaic cells, which could be effectively utilized in solar concentrators. The approach presented can be applied to a wide range of doped quantum dots and polymer hybrids and is compatible with solution processing, thereby offering a general tactic for improving the efficiency of quantum dot based solar cells.The so called 3rd generation solar cells have been the interest of the scientific community with a promise of providing cheap and efficient photovoltaic devices. 1-4 One of the 3rd generation solar cell concepts depends on a combination of inorganic and organic photosensitizers. 5-8 The inorganic components can consist of quantum confined semiconductor structures 3, 9 (nanoparticle, nanorod, tetrapods) that are synthesized via colloidal route combined with conductive polymers such as P3HT. 10, 11 Varying the composition, size and shape of the inorganic component these photovoltaic cells allows capturing and utilizing photons from different parts from the solar output. While these solar cells are proven to be functional, it is difficult to manufacture them with high overall power conversion efficiencies; therefore, research needs to focus on concepts that can identify components that are responsible for the lack of improvements.Among the quantum dot (QD) materials, CdSe QDs received significant attention in this quest of producing efficient solar cells. Although CdSe is not a sustainable material, it provides a platform to study many different effects associated with the construction of polymer/inorganic solar cells. 3 In addition, the bandgap of colloidal CdSe QDs (2.6-1.7 eV) overlaps reasonably well with the solar output to capture large portion of the sunlight's energy. There are several reports that show P3HT/CdSe QDs solar cells provide somewhat efficient power conversion efficiencies in the few percent range. 9, 12-25 Recently, Zhou et al. have reached 5.3% record power conversion efficiency in PCPDTBT: CdSe device as a result of removal of trap sites upon the ethanedithiol 10.1149/06615.0001ecst ©The Electrochemical Society ECS Transactions, 66 (15) 1-8 (2015) 1 ) unless CC License in place (see abstract). ecsdl.org/site/terms_use address. Redistribution subject to ECS terms of use (see 137.122.8.73 Downloaded on 2015-08-06 to IP