A strategy to achieve superior photocurrent by Cu-doped quantum dot sensitized solar cells

We employed successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction method to dope PbS by Cu2+ for fabricating quantum dot sensitized solar cells with a photoanode of the TiO2 mesoporous film deposited by Cu-doped-PbS/CdS, Pt counter electrode and sulfide/polysulfide electrolyte. A power conversion efficiency (similar to 2.01%) coupled with a remarkably superior short circuit current density (up to 21 mA cm(-2)) was achieved in the resulting Cu-doped-PbS/CdS quantum dot-sensitized solar cell. The related mechanism was discussed with Xray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM), respectively. The lattice distortion of Cu doped PbS is found by XRD. The ability of PbS for capturing incident photons is noticeably enhanced by Cu doped. Crown Copyright (C) 2013 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.