HOPV12 - Blogs

4 th Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaic Conference -Uppsala 2012 106
C7 - Inorganic Solution Processed Nanoparticle Solar Cells
Noel Duffy, Jacek Jasieniak, Brandon MacDonald, Anthony Chesman, Scott Watkins
CSIRO, Bayview Ave, Clayton, 3169, AU
Inorganic semiconductors are ideal for long lifetime and efficient solar cells due to their
thermal and photo stability, are spectrally broad absorbers and do not have sealing issues
associated with rival approaches. One major disadvantage of bulk inorganic semiconductors
is their difficultly in processability compared to solution soluble materials. Recently we
described the use of 1-10 nm CdTe inks to fabricate efficient, solution processed solar cells. 1
These devices use significantly less material (< 500 nm film thickness) than conventional
inorganic semiconductor devices, typically 3000nm. Moreover they are also amenable to
deposition on flexible substrates.
Figure 1 (a) CZTS nanoparticles (~12 nm diameter, the smallest circle containing the triangular nanocrystals), (b) i-V
response to chopped light (1s on, 1s off) for a variety of thin film CZTS nanoparticles immobilised on ITO coated
glass.
We are currently focusing on utilizing alternative inorganic materials, based on CIGS and
CZTS nanopartilce inks, and printed device architectures. Characterisation of these thin films
by techniques such as photoelectron spectroscopy in air (PESA) will be presented along with
the photoelectrochemisty and device performance of the normal and inverted architectures.
Photoelectrochemistry has proven to be valuable in investigating the effect of morphology and
electronic properties of the solution deposited and annealed nanoparticles.
References
[1] Jacek Jasieniak, Brandon I. MacDonald, Scott E. Watkins, Paul Mulvaney. Nano Lett., 2011, 2856
© SEFIN 2012