Room-temperature preparation of trisilver-copper-sulfide/polymer based heterojunction thin film for solar cell application

This review captures the synthesis, assembly, properties, and applications of copper chalcogenide NCs, which have achieved significant research interest in the last decade due to their compositional and structural versatility. The outstanding functional properties of these materials stems from the relationship between their band structure and defect concentration, including charge carrier concentration and electronic conductivity character, which consequently affects their optoelectronic, optical, and plasmonic properties. This, combined with several metastable crystal phases and stoichiometries and the low energy of formation of defects, makes the reproducible synthesis of these materials, with tunable parameters, remarkable. Further to this, the review captures the progress of the hierarchical assembly of these NCs, which bridges the link between their discrete and collective properties. Their ubiquitous application set has cross-cut energy conversion (photovoltaics, photocatalysis, thermoelectrics), energy storage (lithium-ion batteries, hydrogen generation), emissive materials (plasmonics, LEDs, biolabelling), sensors (electrochemical, biochemical), biomedical devices (magnetic resonance imaging, X-ray computer tomography), and medical therapies (photochemothermal therapies, immunotherapy, radiotherapy, and drug delivery). The confluence of advances in the synthesis, assembly, and application of these NCs in the past decade has the potential to significantly impact society, both economically and environmentally.

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“…Lei et al. tested Ag 3 CuS 2 nanostructures in a bilayer architecture, but moderate PCEs of 0.79% (with P3HT) and 0.31% (with PTB7) were reached …”

Section: Photovoltaic Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Compound Copper Chalcogenide Nanocrystals

et al. 2017

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“…Both the positive curves corresponded to the positive charge accumulated at the solid/air surface due to the upward band‐bending of the band structures, which is the typical n‐type semiconductor characteristics . The black curve of the as‐deposited hematite showed a broad signal from 10 −7 to 10 −3 s. In the shorter time scale (<10 −6 s), the red trace of annealed hematite increased more sharply than the black trace of the as‐deposited hematite, and it quickly reached to the maximum of the TSPV in 8×10 −7 s. But the trace of the as‐deposited hematite reached to the maximum after 2×10 −5 s. This two‐order slower charge separation in the as‐deposited hematite was possibly attributed to the higher resistant of the film and the large amount of the grain boundary or surface states in solid state, which can be further confirmed by devices in electrolyte. Moreover, the annealed hematite film showed much slower decay rate than the as‐deposited film, confirming the improved quality of the hematite films.…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The UV‐vis absorption of the hematite films were recorded on a UV‐Vis‐NIR spectrometer (Cary 5000, Agilent). A transient surface photovoltage was measured on a home‐built spectrometer using a digital oscilloscope (TDS 3054C, 500 MHz, Tektronix) and a third‐harmonic Nd:YAG laser (BRILEZ/IR‐10 model, λ =355 nm, pulse width of 4 ns, Quantel Brilliant Eazy) in condition (R.H.<10 %) similar to literature reports …”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

Epitaxial‐Like Hydrothermal Growth of Planar Hematite Films for Water Splitting by Waste Remediation

Wang

Yang

et al. 2016

ChemNanoMat

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The development of advanced photoelectrode materials for water splitting is as important as recycling to solve environmental problems. In this Communication, we report a facile hydrothermal epitaxial growth of hematite films from ferrioxalate solution, where the pH, isoelectric point and crystal nature of the substrates play key roles in the film growth. In a photoelectrochemical cell, the hematite photoanodes showed high activity to oxidize water, oxalate or phenol molecules, resulting in hydrogen generation on the counter electrode. This work shines a new light in the direction of environmental waste recycling.There are two highly important unsolved issues for modern society to develop a sustainable energy infrastructure and to reduce humanity's footprint on the environment.[1] One is sustainable energy conversion from environmentally benign sources, such as the generation of biofuels from waste biomass, [2] and the generation of hydrogen from electrocatalytic, [3] photoelectrochemical (PEC) or photocatalytic water splitting.[4] The other issue is reducing the environmental burden, such as CO 2 gas emission and industrial waste solids or liquids.[5] The most promising strategy may be combing energy conversion/storage with waste remediation in an integrated device/process. For example, solar cells, photocatalytic cells or PEC cells [4b] can be applied to convert solar energy to electric energy or generate chemical energy from water. To significantly increase the solar conversion efficiency, narrower bandgap semiconductors made of earth-abundant materials, such as hematite (aFe 2 O 3 ), [6] BiVO 4 , WO 3 , doped TiO 2 , [7] Si and their nanostructures are in high demand. [4b, 8] A conformal semiconductor layer on a highly conductive substrate deposited by an epitaxial-like growth method is one of the most promising structures. [9] Compared with atomic layer deposition (ALD) for epitaxial growth, hydrothermal deposition [10] has many advantages, such as a low fabrication cost and easy scale-up. However, the achievement of high-quality epitaxial-like films is very challenging. Although there are several reviews on hydrothermal deposition, [11] the mechanistic study of solution epitaxial deposition for hematite films is still of great interest.Several hydrothermal methods have been employed to prepare iron oxide or ferric oxyhydroxide films. In the early 1990s, an a-Fe 2 O 3 film with (101) orientation on Si was deposited from iron nitrate and urea.[12] Recently, a similar hydrothermal deposition of hematite nanoflakes on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) was reported by using of FeCl 3 and urea.[13] But most other reports for hematite films relied on akaganeite (bFeOOH) films as precursor, which converted to a-Fe 2 O 3 at a temperature over 290-310 8C.[14] For instance, Vayssieres et al. demonstrated hydrothermal growth of b-FeOOH nanorods arrays from a solution containing 0.15 m FeCl 3 and 1 m NaNO 3 at 100 8C.[15] Later, Ling et al. applied a similar method to prepare b-FeOOH nanowire arrays, wh...

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“…Our group [37][38][39][40][41] has previously explored a direct metal surface elemental reaction (DMSER) method to fabricate various chalcogenide and iodide thin films for photovoltaics. However, the reaction between elemental bismuth and iodine was difficult because the elemental bismuth layer easily vaporizes even at low temperature.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An in-situ room temperature route to CuBiI4 based bulk-heterojunction perovskite-like solar cells

Zhang

Yan

et al. 2018

Sci. China Mater.

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Both bismuth and copper are non-toxic and earth-abundant elements suitable for lead-free halide perovskite-like photovoltaic devices. Here, we report a highly facile route for in-situ producing copper-bismuth-iodide (CuBiI 4) thin films directly on ITO substrate at room temperature, by utilizing a Bi-Cu alloy layer as precursor. X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) results verified the formation of well crystallized CuBiI 4 thin films with [222] orientation. The transient photovoltage (TPV) analysis revealed that the CuBiI 4 is an n-type semiconductor with a suitable band gap of~1.81 eV, preferable to photoelectric conversion compared with CH 3 NH 3 PbI 3. It is very interesting that the subsequent spin-coating process of the classical Spiro-MeOTAD organic solution with TBP and acetonitrile resulted in a dense and smooth CuBiI 4 :Spiro-MeOTAD bulk-heterojunction film. The preliminarily fabricated simple sandwich structures of ITO/CuBiI 4 :Spiro-MeO-TAD/Au hybrid solar cell devices displayed efficient photovoltaic performance with the PCE up to 1.119% of the best sample. The room temperature direct metal surface elemental reaction (DMSER) method may provide a new insight for all-inorganic lead free perovskite-like A a B b X x compounds and high performance photovoltaic devices.

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Room-temperature preparation of trisilver-copper-sulfide/polymer based heterojunction thin film for solar cell application

Cited by 24 publications

References 44 publications

Compound Copper Chalcogenide Nanocrystals

Compound Copper Chalcogenide Nanocrystals

Epitaxial‐Like Hydrothermal Growth of Planar Hematite Films for Water Splitting by Waste Remediation

An in-situ room temperature route to CuBiI4 based bulk-heterojunction perovskite-like solar cells

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