Template-Free Liquid-Phase Synthesis of High-Density CdS Nanowire Arrays on Conductive Glass

Abstract

High-density and single-crystalline CdS nanowire arrays were formed on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO)coated soda-lime glass substrates without aid of templates at 220 °C. Bi was employed as a catalyst for the low-temperature growth of CdS nanowires via solution-liquid-solid (SLS) mechanism. CdS nanowires were very straight and they were ∼20-50 nm in diameter and ∼2-3 µm in length. CdS nanowires were in highly crystalline wurtzite structure, and their crystal growth direction was [001]. Careful controlling of processing conditions including Bi catalyst size, precursor concentration, and processing temperature was effective to grow thin CdS nanowires by suppressing formation of nanoparticles and radial growth of nanowires. Poly vinyl alcohol (PVA) film covering Bi catalyst layer played a critical role in holding Bi liquid droplets on the substrates during nanowire growth. The potential of CdS nanowire arrays on FTO/glass substrates was demonstrated to be used for organic-inorganic hybrid solar cells.

A green approach for direct growth of CdS nanoparticles network in poly(3-hexylthiophene-2,5-diyl) polymer film for hybrid photovoltaic

“…It has been observed that nanomaterials like CdS nanorods (40 nm), spherical CdS (50 nm), CdSe tetrapods (50 nm) and hyper-branched CdSe (100 nm) show power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 0.89%, 2.2%, 1.13% and 0.7%, respectively [6][7][8][11][12][13]. Capping ligands control the kinetics of nucleation, growth and coarsening of NPs, thus inhibiting their agglomeration and influencing their solubility.…”

Bi Catalyzed CdS Nanowires With Temperature-Dependent Morphologies for Potential Applications in Solar Cells

“…Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technique, assisted or not by metal catalysts (nanoparticles or very thin layers) is frequently used for preparing CdS NWs (Wang et al, 2002a;Ge and Li, 2004;Kwak et al, 2009). They are obtained by transport of the vapor species to the substrates covered with the catalyst.…”

“…Bismuth appears to be a suitable catalyst candidate for the preparation of CdS NWs due to its low melting temperature of 271 • C and because it forms a eutectic with Cd at 145 • C (Keşlioglu et al, 2004). In the last few years, the preparation of nanostructures of several semiconductor materials using Bi as a catalytic metal has been reported (Wang et al, 2006;Ouyang et al, 2007;Sun and Buhro, 2008;Kwak et al, 2009Kwak et al, , 2010. In these cases, the nanostructures were obtained using a thin layer of Bi; the solution-liquid-solid mechanism (SLS) has been verified.…”

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

“…A number of reports have described the growth of CdS branched nanostructures in colloidal systems [21][22][23][24][25][26]. In contrast, only a few studies on CdS straight nanorod arrays on substrates have been reported [27][28][29][30][31] [32], where CdS branched nanorod arrays were fabricated via a one-step hydrothermal approach employing cadmium sulfide and thiourea as starting agents. Unfortunately, the branched nanorod arrays so obtained were sparse on ITO, and the growth was incontrollable, thus limiting their performance in device applications.…”