In the quest for higher efficiency and lower cost solar energy conversion devices, new light absorber materials are being intensively researched. With their attractive optical and electrical properties, metal chalcogenide materials have emerged as promising candidates for these nextgeneration light absorbers. In this review, we survey studies on chalcogenide light absorbers having a simple binary composition, namely, Cu 2 S, SnS, GeSe, WSe 2 , Sb 2 S 3 , and Sb 2 Se 3 . Each material has its own unique strengths and weaknesses in terms of cost, abundance, optoelectronic properties, secondary phase formation, anisotropic carrier transport, and defect properties. After critical consideration of the unique properties, we scrutinize recently developed strategies for overcoming the material specific challenges while presenting future perspectives on each material.
Ammonia solution etching was carried out on thermally-oxidised cuprous oxide (TO-Cu2O) in photocathode devices for water splitting. The etched devices showed increased photoelectrochemical (PEC) performance compared to the unetched ones...
Cu2S is a promising solar energy conversion material owing to its good optical properties, elemental earth abundance, and low cost. However, simple and cheap methods to prepare phase‐pure and photo‐active Cu2S thin films are lacking. This study concerns the development of a cost‐effective and high‐throughput method that consists of dissolving high‐purity commercial Cu2S powder in a thiol‐amine solvent mixture followed by spin coating and low‐temperature annealing to obtain phase‐pure crystalline low chalcocite Cu2S thin films. After coupling with a CdS buffer layer, a TiO2 protective layer and a RuOx hydrogen evolution catalyst, the champion Cu2S photocathode gives a photocurrent density of 2.5 mA cm−2 at −0.3 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode (VRHE), an onset potential of 0.42 VRHE, and high stability over 12 h in pH 7 buffer solution under AM1.5 G simulated sunlight illumination (100 mW cm−2). This is the first thiol‐amine‐based ink deposition strategy to prepare phase‐pure Cu2S thin films achieving decent photoelectrochemical performance, which will facilitate its future scalable application for solar‐driven hydrogen fuel production.
Cu 2 S is a promising solar energy conversion material due to its suitable optical properties, high elemental earth abundance, and nontoxicity. In addition to the challenge of multiple stable secondary phases, the short minority carrier diffusion length poses an obstacle to its practical application. This work addresses the issue by synthesizing nanostructured Cu 2 S thin films, which enables increased charge carrier collection. A simple solution-processing method involving the preparation of CuCl and CuCl 2 molecular inks in a thiol-amine solvent mixture followed by spin coating and low-temperature annealing was used to obtain phase-pure nanostructured (nanoplate and nanoparticle) Cu 2 S thin films. The photocathode based on the nanoplate Cu 2 S (FTO/Au/Cu 2 S/CdS/TiO 2 /RuO x ) reveals enhanced charge carrier collection and improved photoelectrochemical water-splitting performance compared to the photocathode based on the non-nanostructured Cu 2 S thin film reported previously. A photocurrent density of 3.0 mA cm −2 at −0.2 versus a reversible hydrogen electrode (V RHE ) with only 100 nm thickness of a nanoplate Cu 2 S layer and an onset potential of 0.43 V RHE were obtained. This work provides a simple, cost-effective, and high-throughput method to prepare phase-pure nanostructured Cu 2 S thin films for scalable solar hydrogen production.
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