Synthesis and exploitation in solar cells of hydrothermally grown ZnO nanorods covered by ZnS quantum dots

Abstract

Improved power conversion efficiency of hybrid solar cells with ITO/ZnO seed layer/ZnO NRs/ZnS QDs/P3HT/PCBM/Ag structure was obtained by optimizing the growth period of ZnO nanorods (NRs). ZnO NRs were grown using a hydrothermal method on ZnO seed layers, while ZnS quantum dots (QDs) (average thickness about 24 nm) were fabricated on the ZnO NRs by the successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) technique. Morphology, crystalline structure and optical absorption of layers were analyzed by a scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and UV-Visible absorption spectra, respectively. The XRD results implied that ZnS QDs were in the cubic phase (sphalerite). Other experimental results showed that the maximum power conversion efficiency of 4.09% was obtained for a device based on ZnO NR10 under an illumination of one Sun (AM 1.5G, 100 mW/cm2).