This review article gives an overview of different complexing agents used during chemical deposition of metal chalcogenide thin films and their role in controlling the resultant morphology by effective complexation of the metal ion.

Heterojunction (HJ) thin-film II–VI solar cells are emergent substitutes to the traditional silicon solar cells because of improved efficiency and cost-effectiveness. A renewed interest in depositing the constituent layers employing chemical bath deposition (CBD) is shown because of the absence of any stringent reaction conditions which ensures the preservation of the properties of the constituent layers. Variation in the growth conditions has strong effects on the morphologies and the properties of the resultant films specially the interface. Inappropriate or alloyed interfaces may result in pinholes formation affecting the resultant electric field because of reduced junction area and enhanced recombination for carriers which in turn affects the efficiency. In this review, we provide an overview of the different combinations of metal chalcogenide/chalcopyrite thin-film layers for HJ solar cells by CBD and achieving control over the resultant morphology, particularly focusing on interfacial epitaxial relationship which is found to have substantial influence on the efficiency of the resultant cell. Graphical abstract Heterojunction (HJ) thin-film II–VI solar cells are emergent substitutes to the traditional silicon solar cells because of improved efficiency and cost-effectiveness. A renewed interest in depositing the constituent layers employing chemical bath deposition (CBD) is shown because of its simplicity and versatility. Variation in the growth conditions like temperature and the reagent concentrations have strong effects on the morphologies and the properties of the resultant films specially the interface. In this review, we provide an overview of the different combinations of metal chalcogenide/ chalcopyrite thin-film layers for HJ solar cells by CBD and achieving control over the resultant morphology and phase composition, particularly focusing on interfacial epitaxial relationship, which is found to have substantial influence on the efficiency of the resultant cell.

One‐dimensional heterojunction devices are gaining attention because of improved carrier collection which results in improving the overall efficiency of a device. Herein, we report the synthesis of a CdS/p‐Si nanowire (NW) hetero‐junction device by wet‐chemical methods and their potential application for electricity generation from atmospheric moisture. A single CdS/p‐Si NWs hetero‐junction based moisture enabled electricity generator (MEG) device exhibits a saturated maximum output voltage in the range of 250–300 mV and a saturation current of ∼0.2 μA in presence of humid conditions. This primitive module acts as a promising candidate for future energy generation devices constituting of individual units connected either through simple series or parallel connection to scale up high electrical power.