Undoped and Manganese(2+)-doped polycrystalline Cd1-xInxTe sensitizer for liquid-junction solar cell devices

Mutika Singsa-ngah; Kritsada Hongsith; Supab Choopun; Auttasit Tubtimtae

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2015.04.003

Undoped and Manganese(2+)-doped polycrystalline Cd1-xInxTe sensitizer for liquid-junction solar cell devices

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2015 Aug 1:451:189-97. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2015.04.003. Epub 2015 Apr 6.

Authors

Mutika Singsa-ngah¹, Kritsada Hongsith², Supab Choopun², Auttasit Tubtimtae³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Science, Kasetsart University Kamphaeng Saen Campus, Nakhon Pathom 73140, Thailand.
² Department of Physics and Material Sciences, Faculty of Science, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand; Thailand Center of Excellence in Physics (ThEP Center), CHE, Bangkok 10400, Thailand.
³ Department of Physics, Faculty of Liberal Arts and Science, Kasetsart University Kamphaeng Saen Campus, Nakhon Pathom 73140, Thailand. Electronic address: tubtimtae@gmail.com.

PMID: 25897855
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2015.04.003

Abstract

Ternary Cd1-xInxTe semiconductor nanoparticles have been demonstrated to be sensitizers for solar cell devices. The chemical bath deposition (CBD) process was used to synthesize Cd1-xInxTe nanoparticles, which were deposited onto a mesoporous TiO2 photoelectrode. Individual nanoparticles were estimated to have an average diameter range of ∼10nm. The atomic percentages of chemical elements for Mn(2+)-doped Cd1-xInxTe show that the structure could be Mn(2+)-doped CdInTe incorporated with CdIn2Te4 structure. The resulted X-ray diffraction and diffraction ring patterns of Mn(2+)-doped Cd1-xInxTe nanoparticles indicated the structure to be tetragonal. The optical band gaps were also decreased to 0.9eV after Mn(2+) doping, compared with Eg=1.47eV for undoped Cd1-xInxTe(7). The best efficiency of 0.51% under 100 mW/cm(2) (AM 1.5G) was obtained after Mn(2+) doping with a short-circuit current density (Jsc) of 1.71mA/cm(2), an open-circuit voltage (Voc) of 0.739V and a fill factor (FF) of 40.2%. This work demonstrated the feasibility of using Cd1-xInxTe with Mn(2+) doping as a broadband solar absorber for TiO2 photoelectrodes.

Keywords: Cadmium indium telluride; Chemical bath deposition; Manganese doping; Semiconductor sensitizer; Solar cells.