Enhanced performance of cadmium selenide quantum dot-sensitized solar cells by incorporating long afterglow europium, dysprosium co-doped strontium aluminate phosphors

Hengchao Sun; Likun Pan; Xianqing Piao; Zhuo Sun

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2013.10.050

Enhanced performance of cadmium selenide quantum dot-sensitized solar cells by incorporating long afterglow europium, dysprosium co-doped strontium aluminate phosphors

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2014 Feb 15:416:81-5. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2013.10.050. Epub 2013 Nov 8.

Authors

Hengchao Sun¹, Likun Pan², Xianqing Piao¹, Zhuo Sun¹

Affiliations

¹ Engineering Research Center for Nanophotonics & Advanced Instrument, Ministry of Education, Department of Physics, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China.
² Engineering Research Center for Nanophotonics & Advanced Instrument, Ministry of Education, Department of Physics, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China. Electronic address: lkpan@phy.ecnu.edu.cn.

PMID: 24370405
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2013.10.050

Abstract

CdSe quantum dot-sensitized solar cells based on an efficient bifunctional structured layer composed of long afterglow SrAl2O4:Eu,Dy phosphors on top of a transparent layer of nanocrystalline TiO2 were fabricated and their photovoltaic performances were investigated. The results show that a high power conversion efficiency of 1.22% is achieved for the cell with SrAl2O4:Eu,Dy at one sun illumination (AM 1.5 G, 100 mW cm(-2)), which is an increase of 48% compared to the cell without SrAl2O4:Eu,Dy (0.82%). After one sun illumination for 1 min and subsequent turn off of the light source, the cell with SrAl2O4:Eu,Dy still shows an efficiency of 0.04% under dark condition due to the irradiation by the long persistent light from SrAl2O4:Eu,Dy. The present strategy should provide a possibility to fulfill the operation of solar cells even in the dark.

Keywords: Down-converting; Long afterglow; Quantum dots; Scattering; Solar cells.