Formation of Branched ZnO Nanowires from Solvothermal Method and Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells Applications

Abstract

Branched ZnO nanowires have been fabricated on conductive glass substrates via a solvothermal method for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs). The 1D branched nanostructures can afford a direct conduction pathway instead of interparticle hops while using nanoparticles. Furthermore, the short-circuit current density and the energy conversion efficiency of the branched ZnO nanowire DSCs are 4.27 mA/cm 2 and 1.51%, which are twice as high as the bare ZnO nanowire ones. The improvement was a consequence of the enlargement of the internal surface area within the photoelectrode and allowed us to achieve higher dye adsorption to significantly enhance the performance of the DSCs.

Investigations on the Properties of Nanostructured Mg-Doped Sn2S3 Thin Films towards Photovoltaic Applications

“…It has been proposed recently that in 3D nanostructured networks comprised of semiconductor nanorods, nanotubes or nanowires high electron transport rate could * corresponding author; e-mail: arbalu757@gmail.com be achieved, as these networks provide direct conduction pathways for rapid collection of photo-generated electrons [8]. In photoelectric conversion, these 3D networks can enhance relaxation light harvesting by multiple scattering thereby increasing the conversion efficiency [9].…”

Investigation of Porous Zn Growth Mechanism during Zn Reactive Sputter Deposition

“…Metal oxides, in particular ZnO have been selected as materials of choice for such applications due to their exceptionally chemically active surfaces enabling their easy functionalization. Furthermore, a wide array of morphologies has been developed including nanoparticles [1], nanowires [2], nanobelts [3] and more exotic shapes as nanoforests [4]. ZnO nanostructures with porous morphology were recently demonstrated by our group using reactive magnetron Zn sputtering [5].…”

Controlled growth, properties, and application of CdS branched nanorod arrays on transparent conducting oxide substrate

“…As a result, the CdS B-NRsbased cell reaches a power conversion efficiency of 0.25%, outperforming that of the straight NRs-based device by 92%. The significantly enhanced J sc could be ascribed to the fact that formation of additional branches from bare nanorod arrays increased junctions between CdS and P3HT, and to the superior light absorbability of the CdS B-NR, as compared to the straight NRs [14]. Furthermore, the formation of epitaxial CdS branches from the backbones can increase the electron diffusion length and electron collection by providing more direct charge transport pathways along the crystalline CdS branches [13,34], so that the FF was improved greatly.…”

“…Moreover, both the VLS process and the SLS growth need metallic catalysts, thus introducing impurities in the products, which is often detrimental to device performance. Most recently, solution synthesis has been demonstrated to be an effective strategy to prepare branched ZnO [13][14][15], TiO 2 [16] and ZnO/TiO 2 /CuO [17] hierarchical nanomaterials on TCO. For example, Ko et al [13] have for the first time fabricated ZnO nanowire arrays on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) via the hydrothermal process, then a seed layer of ZnO nanoparticles was deposited on the surface of the ZnO nanowires to guide the succeeding growth of ZnO branches.…”