engleski

Nanostructured Zincite Thin-films Modified with Squaraines for Solar Energy Harvesting

Solid state solar cells (SC) of the newer generations are multilayered thin-films. Their high efficiencies and performance rely on the successful generation and extraction of electron-hole pairs from the photoactive layer trough electron and hole transport layers toward the electrodes. Multilayer thin-films allow vast number of upgrades but with one major drawback which is the mutual dependency of the constituting layers. Possible ways of improving the SC efficiency are the use of novel absorbing materials, like squaraine (SQ) dyes, that are easy to synthesise, have high absorption coefficients with tuneable bandgaps and are very stable ; or the use of nanostructured electron transport layers (ETL) like zincite that can improve the charge carrier generation and separation, or preferably both. In that case, the remaining concern is the demystification of the charge carrier transfer pathways with respect to aforementioned mutual dependency of the constituents. In this work, we try to find and utilise the appropriate tool to evaluate the influence of the SQ layer in combination with the nanostructured ETL zincite on some of the critical functional aspects of hybrid-organic SC. For the purpose specially configured atomic force microscope (AFM) was used.

Squaraine dyes, Tunable bandgaps, Thin-films, Nanostructured zincite, Solid-state solar cells, Atomic force microscopy

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