Photovoltaic performance enhancement of CdS quantum dot-sensitized TiO₂ photoanodes with plasmonic gold nanoparticles

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• 作者：Aiping Liu ; Qinghua Ren ; Ming Zhao ; Tao Xu ; Ming Yuan ; Tingyu Zhao ; Weihua Tang
• 关键词：Metallic plasmon ; Quantum dot-sensitized solar cells ; Photovoltaic behavior ; Light scattering and concentrating
• 刊名：Journal of Alloys and Compounds
• 出版年：15 March, 2014
• 年：2014
• 卷：589
• 期：Complete
• 页码：218-225
• 全文大小：2881 K

文摘

The CdS quantum dot-sensitized TiO₂ films with plasmonic gold nanoparticles were designed as photoanodes by the electrodeposition of gold combined with the 鈥渟uccessive ionic layer adsorption and reaction鈥?(SILAR) method for CdS deposition on porous TiO₂ films. A prominent enhancement in light absorption of Au/TiO₂/CdS hybrid was attained by efficient light scattering of gold plasmons as sub-wavelength antennas and concentrators. The photogenerated electron formed in the near-surface region of TiO₂ and CdS were facilitated to transfer to the plasmonic gold, resulting in the enhancement of photocurrent and incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency of hybrid photoanode upon photoirradiation. Furthermore, the photovoltaic response of hybrid was highly tunable with respect to the number of SILAR cycles applied to deposit CdS. The thicker absorber layer with less porous structure and larger CdS crystals might limit the electrolyte diffusion into the hybrid electrode and impose a barrier for electron tunneling and transferring. The highly versatile and tunable properties of Au/TiO₂/CdS photoanodes demonstrated their potential application in energy conversion devices.