Zinc sulfide nanocrystals decorated vertically aligned ZnO nanorods on wide bandgap seed layers for lead-free perovskite solar cells
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Syed Farid Uddin Farhad*, Nazmul Islam Tanvir, Md. Nur Amin Bitu, Md. Al Mamun, Md. Saidul Islam, Md. Saiful Quddus, Mohammad Moniruzzaman, “Zinc sulfide nanocrystals decorated vertically aligned ZnO nanorods on wide bandgap seed layers for lead-free perovskite solar cells” (Article ID#PA.26) presented at Materials Today Conference 2023 (MATA 2023), 2-5 August, Singapore Expo, Singapore organized by Materials Today Journals (Elsevier). Program URL: https://www.elsevier.com/events/conferences/materials-today-conference/program Article URL: https://d3ijlhudpq9yjw.cloudfront.net/2567d62e-e0d2-45d3-9f67-0582e90fe6d4.pdf Abstract: Solar photovoltaic (PV) is one of the most promising renewable energy sources to meet the present and future energy demands of our planet. Out of the various kinds of PVs, hybrid inorganic-organic PVs based on lead (Pb) compounds recently attracted tremendous attention due to their demonstrated power conversion efficiency (PCE) exceeding 25%, solution-processability, and potential integration into tandem solar cells. However, the utilization of Pb-based perovskites as absorber materials hinders the large-scale commercial production of perovskite solar cells (PSCs) due to the lack of specified protocols for handling the large amount of toxic Pb at the industrial level. Therefore, an economically viable and environmentally sustainable plan could be using non-toxic tin (Sn)-based perovskite absorber material (Sn-ABM) and utilizing earth-abundant metal oxide nanostructure-based charge collection and separation means for pushing the reported PCE further. To this end, Zinc Sulfide (ZnS) nanocrystal decorated vertically aligned ZnO nanorods arrays have been proposed to provide direct pathways for the quick separation and collection of photogenerated charge carriers towards the electrode with high electron mobility to overcome the issues of Sn-ABM. Suitable loading of ZnS nanocrystals atop the ZnO nanorod surface (ZnS: ZnO NRs) should also improve the light-harvesting efficiency further due to the pronounced absorption of UV-radiation incident on the PSCs. In this effort, vertically aligned ZnS: ZnO NRs have been synthesized by a facile low-temperature (<100 0C) hydrothermal process on previously dip-coated wide bandgap (Eg>3.8 eV) Zinc Chloride (ZnCl2) seeding layers and then heated at a temperature of 250 oC for 1 h in air. The morphological, chemical, structural, and optical properties of ZnS: ZnO NRs on ZnCl2 seed layers were characterized by the Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FE-SEM) coupled with an energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) microanalyzer, Grazing Incidence X-ray diffractometer (GI-XRD), Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM), Raman, Photoluminescence, and UV-Vis-NIR spectrometer to assess their suitability for lead-free PSCs.
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The World Academy of Sciences
20-143 RG/PHYS/AS_I