• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• 제4권3호
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• pp.98-107
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• 2016

Third-generation photovoltaics are of low cost based on solution processes and are targeting a high efficiency. To meet the commercial demand, however, significant improvements of both efficiency and stability are required. In this sense, interfacial engineering can be useful key to solve these issues because trap sites and interfacial energy barrier and/or chemical instability at organic/organic and organic/inorganic interfaces are critical factors of efficiency and stability degradation. Here, we thoroughly review the interfacial engineering strategies applicable to three representative third-generation photovoltaics - organic, perovskite, colloidal quantum dot solar cell devices.

• 한국진공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국진공학회 2012년도 제43회 하계 정기 학술대회 초록집
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• pp.413-413
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• 2012

Lead sulfide (PbS) Colloidal quantum dots (CQDs) are promising material for the photovoltaic device due to its various outstanding properties such as tunable band-gap, solution processability, and infrared absorption. More importantly, PbS CQDs have large exciton Bohr radius of 20 nm due to the uniquely large dielectric constants that result in the strong quantum confinement. To exploit desirable properties in photovoltaic device, it is essential to fabricate a device exhibiting stable performance. Unfortunately, the performance of PbS NQDs based Schottky solar cell is considerably degraded according to the exposure in the air. The air-exposed degradation originates on the oxidation of interface between PbS NQDS layer and metal electrode. Therefore, it is necessary to enhance the stability of Schottky junction device by inserting a passivation layer. We investigate the effect of insertion of passivation layer on the performance of Schottky junction solar cells using PbS NQDs with band-gap of 1.3 eV. Schottky solar cell is the simple photovoltaic device with junction between semiconducting layer and metal electrode which a significant built-in-potential is established due to the workfunction difference between two materials. Although the device without passivation layer significantly degraded in several hours, considerable enhancement of stability can be obtained by inserting the very thin LiF layer (<1 nm) as a passivation layer. In this study, LiF layer is inserted between PbS NQDs layer and metal as an interface passivation layer. From the results, we can conclude that employment of very thin LiF layer is effective to enhance the stability of Schottky junction solar cells. We believe that this passivation layer is applicable not only to the PbS NQDs based solar cell, but also the various NQDs materials in order to enhance the stability of the device.

• 한국진공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국진공학회 2016년도 제50회 동계 정기학술대회 초록집
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• pp.420.1-420.1
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• 2016

Colloidal quantum dot (CQD) is emerging as a promising active material for next-generation solar cell applications because of its inexpensive and solution-processable characteristics as well as unique properties such as a tunable band-gap due to the quantum-size effect and multiple exciton generation. However, the most widely used spin-coating method for the formation of the quantum dot (QD) active layers is generally hard to be adopted for high productivity and large-area process. Instead, the spray-coating technique may potentially be utilized for high-throughput production of the CQD solar cells (CQDSCs) because it can be adapted to continuous process and large-area deposition on various substrates although the cell efficiency is still lower than that of the devices fabricated with spin-coating method. In this work, we observed that the subsequent treatment of two different ligands, halide ion and butanedithiol, on the lead sulfide (PbS) QD layer significantly enhanced the cell efficiency of the spray CQDSCs. The maximum power conversion efficiency was 5.3%, comparable to that of the spin-coating CQDSCs.

• 한국진공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국진공학회 2016년도 제50회 동계 정기학술대회 초록집
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• pp.347.2-347.2
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• 2016

Recently, in order to improve the performance of the colloidal quantum dot solar cells (CQDSCs), various efforts such as the modification of the cell architecture and surface treatment for quantum dot (QD) passivation have been made. Especially, the incorporation of halides into the QD matrix was reported to improve the performances significantly via passivating QD trap states that lower the life-time of the minority-carrier. In this work, we fabricated a lead sulfide (PbS) QD bilayer treated with different ligands and utilized it as a photoactive layer of the CQDSCs. The bottom and top PbS layer was treated using metal iodide ($MI_x$ and butanedithiol (BuDT), respectively. All the depositions and ligand treatments were carried out in air using layer-by-layer spin-coating process. The fabrication of the active layers as well as the n-type zinc oxide (ZnO) layer was successfully carried out on the bendable indium-tin-oxide (ITO)-coated polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate, which implies that this technique can be applied to the fabrication of flexible and/or wearable solar cells. The power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the CQDSCs with the architecture of $PET/ITO/ZnO/PbS-MI_x/PbS-BuDT/MoO_x/Ag$ reached 4.2 %, which is significantly larger than that of the cells with single QD (PbS-BuDT) layer.

• 한국진공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국진공학회 2015년도 제49회 하계 정기학술대회 초록집
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• pp.249.1-249.1
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• 2015

Quantum dots (QDs) are attracting growing attention for photovoltaic device applications because of their unique electronic, optical and physical properties. Lead sulfide (PbS) QDs are one of the most widely studied materials for the devices and known to have size-tunable properties. In this context, we investigated the relationship between the size of PbS QDs and two synthesizing conditions, a concentration of ligand, oleic acid in this work, and injection temperature. The inverted colloidal quantum dot solar cells based on the heterojunction of n-type zinc oxide layer and p-type PbS QDs were also fabricated. The size of the QDs and cell properties were observed to depend on both the QD synthesizing conditions, and hence the overall efficiency of the cell could vary even though the size of QDs used was same. The QD synthesizing conditions were finally optimized for the maximum cell efficiency.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• 제28권6호
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• pp.953-958
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• 2007

Anchoring quantum dots (QDs) onto thermodynamically stable, large band gap oxide semiconductors is a very important strategy to enhance their quantum yields for solar energy conversion in both visible and near-IR regions. We describe a general procedure for anchoring a few chalcogenide QDs onto the titanium oxide layer. To anchor the colloidal QDs onto a mesoporous TiO2 layer, linker molecules containing both carboxylate and thiol functional groups were initially attached to TiO2 layers and subsequently used to capture dispersed QDs with the thiol group. Employing the procedure, we exploited cadmium selenide (CdSe) and cadmium telluride (CdTe) quantum dots (QDs) as inorganic sensitizers for a large band gap TiO2 layer of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Their attachment was confirmed by naked eyes, absorption spectra, and photovoltaic effects. A few QD-TiO2 systems thus obtained have been characterized for photoelectrochemical solar energy conversion.

• 전기화학회지
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• 제18권1호
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• pp.38-44
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• 2015

본 총설은 다공성의 메조포러스 이산화티타늄 박막을 기반으로 하는 양자점-감응 태양 전지의 최근 발전 과정에 대해 정리하였다. 나노스케일의 무기물 양자점이 가지는 본질적 특성에 기반하고 다양한 양자점 구성 물질을 이용하여, 용액-공정 기반의 다양한 3세대 박막 태양전지를 만들 수 있었다. 양자점 감응제는 준비하는 방법에 따라 크게 2가지로 나눌 수 있는데, 첫 번째는 콜로이드 형태로 용액상에서 준비한 다음 $TiO_2$ 표면에 붙이는 것이고 두 번째는 양자점 전구체가 녹아있는 화학조를 이용하여 직접 $TiO_2$ 표면에 성장시키는 것이다. 폴리썰파이드 전해질을 사용하여, 콜로이드 양자점 감응제의 경우는 최근 들어 정밀한 조성 조절을 통하여 전체 광전 변환효율이 ~7%에 이르렀고 화학조 침전법을 이용하여 준비된 대표적 감응제인 CdS/CdSe는 ~5%의 효율을 보이고 있다. 앞으로는 지금까지 보고된 양자점 감응제의 뛰어난 광전류 생성 능력을 유지하면서, 새로운 정공 전달체의 개발 및 계면 조절을 통한 개방 전압과 채움 상수의 개선을 통한 효율 증가 및 안정성에 관한 체계적 연구가 필요한 상황이다.

• 한국진공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국진공학회 2012년도 제43회 하계 정기 학술대회 초록집
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• pp.189-189
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• 2012

Lead sulfide (PbS) nanocrystal quantum dots (NQDs) are promising materials for various optoelectronic devices, especially solar cells, because of their tunability of the optical band-gap controlled by adjusting the diameter of NQDs. PbS is a IV-VI semiconductor enabling infrared-absorption and it can be synthesized using solution process methods. A wide choice of the diameter of PbS NQDs is also a benefit to achieve the quantum confinement regime due to its large Bohr exciton radius (20 nm). To exploit these desirable properties, many research groups have intensively studied to apply for the photovoltaic devices. There are several essential requirements to fabricate the efficient NQDs-based solar cell. First of all, highly confined PbS QDs should be synthesized resulting in a narrow peak with a small full width-half maximum value at the first exciton transition observed in UV-Vis absorbance and photoluminescence spectra. In other words, the size-uniformity of NQDs ought to secure under 5%. Second, PbS NQDs should be assembled carefully in order to enhance the electronic coupling between adjacent NQDs by controlling the inter-QDs distance. Finally, appropriate structure for the photovoltaic device is the key issue to extract the photo-generated carriers from light-absorbing layer in solar cell. In this step, workfunction and Fermi energy difference could be precisely considered for Schottky and hetero junction device, respectively. In this presentation, we introduce the strategy to obtain high performance solar cell fabricated using PbS NQDs below the size of the Bohr radius. The PbS NQDs with various diameters were synthesized using methods established by Hines with a few modifications. PbS NQDs solids were assembled using layer-by-layer spin-coating method. Subsequent ligand-exchange was carried out using 1,2-ethanedithiol (EDT) to reduce inter-NQDs distance. Finally, Schottky junction solar cells were fabricated on ITO-coated glass and 150 nm-thick Al was deposited on the top of PbS NQDs solids as a top electrode using thermal evaporation technique. To evaluate the solar cell performance, current-voltage (I-V) measurement were performed under AM 1.5G solar spectrum at 1 sun intensity. As a result, we could achieve the power conversion efficiency of 3.33% at Schottky junction solar cell. This result indicates that high performance solar cell is successfully fabricated by optimizing the all steps as mentioned above in this work.

• 한국진공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국진공학회 2012년도 제42회 동계 정기 학술대회 초록집
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• pp.533-534
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• 2012

Colloidal III-V semiconductor nanocrystal quantum dots (NQDs) have attracted attention as they can be applied in various areas such as LED, solar cell, biological imaging, and so on because they have decreased ionic lattices, lager exciton diameter, and reduced toxicity compared with II-VI compounds. However, the study and application of III-V semiconductor nanocrystals is limited by difficulties in control nucleation because the molecular bonds in III-V semiconductors are highly covalent compared to II-VI compounds. There is a need for a method that provides rapid and scalable production of highly quality nanoparticles. We present a new synthetic scheme for the preparation of InP nanocrystal quantum dots using new phosphorus precursor, P(SiMe2tbu)3. InP nanocrystals from 530nm to 600nm have been synthesized via the reaction of In(Ac)3 and new phosphorus precursor in noncoordinating solvent, ODE. This opens the way for the large-scale production of high quality Cd-free nanocrystal quantum dots.