Controlled Morphology of ZnO Nanorods for Electron Transport in Squaraine Bulk-Hetero Junction Solar Cells With Thick Active Layers

The influence of ZnO seed layer thickness in Squaraine (SQ) is investigated: PC71BM bulk heterojunction solar cells that incorporate ZnO nanorods. The thickness of the ZnO seed layer varies between 16–249 nm by changing the concentration of the precursor solution. With atomic force microscopy (AFM), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) studies, it is shown that this approach allows to systematically tune the thickness of the ZnO seed layer without influencing seed layer grain size, or the morphology of the ZnO nanorods that are deposited on top of the seed layer. The proof-of-concept is demonstrated in SQ:PC71BM solar cells. It is found that seed layers with 55 nm thickness yield the highest short circuit current densities, resulting in power conversion efficiencies of 2.5 ± 0.1%. These results are compared to SQ:PC71BM solar cells prepared in planar architectures, and it is observed that both device architectures yield comparable results. The optimized nanostructured ZnO electrode enables the fabrication of BHJ devices with thick active layers without the loss in solar cell performance

Hot-carrier cooling in lead-bromide perovskite materials

Lead-halide perovskites are currently the highest-performing solution-processable semiconductors for solar energy conversion, with record efficiencies rapidly approaching that of the Shockley-Queisser limit for single-junction solar cells. Further progress in the development of lead-halide perovskite solar cells must overcome this limit, which largely stems from the ultrafast relaxation of high-energy hot carriers above the bandedge. In this contribution, we use a highly-specialized pump-push-probe technique to unravel the key parameters which control hot carrier cooling in bulk and nanocrystal (NC) lead bromide perovskites with different material composition, NC diameter and surface treatment. All samples exhibit slower cooling for higher hot carrier densities, which we assign to a phonon bottleneck mechanism. By comparing this density-dependent cooling behavior in the different samples, we find that the weak quantum confinement of electronic states and the surface defects in the NCs play no observable role in the hot carrier relaxation. Meanwhile, in accordance with our previous observations for bulk perovskites, we show that the cation plays a critical role towards carrier cooling in the perovskite NCs, as evidenced by the faster overall cooling in the hybrid FAPbBr3 NCs with respect to the all-inorganic CsPbBr3 NCs. These observations highlight the crucial role of the cations toward the phononic properties of lead-halide perovskites, and further point towards the defect tolerance of these emerging solution-processed semiconductors

Resonances of individual lithographic gold nanowires in the infrared

1 - ArticleWith infrared spectroscopic microscopy using synchrotron radiation, we systematically studied resonant light scattering from electron-beam lithographically produced gold nanowires (nanostripes) with diameters in the 100 nm range and with various lengths below 1 to about 2.5 mu m. Similar to electrochemically grown cylindrical wires of high crystalline quality, clear antennalike plasmon resonances were observed for these stripelike and less-perfect wires. The resonance wavelength shifts with length as theoretically predicted for cylindrical gold antennas in the optical range. Surprisingly, also the extinction cross section of the nanostripes is equal to that measured for highly crystalline cylinders

Kinetic modelling of carrier cooling in lead halide perovskite materials

The relaxation of high-energy "hot" carriers in semiconductors is known to involve the redistribution of energy between (i) hot and cold carriers and (ii) hot carriers and phonons. Over the past few years, these two processes have been identified in lead-halide perovskites (LHPs) using ultrafast pump-probe experiments, but the interplay between these processes is not fully understood. Here we present a comprehensive kinetic model to elucidate the individual effects of the hot and cold carriers in bulk and nanocrystal $CsPbBr_{3}$ films obtained from "pump-push-probe" measurements. In accordance with our previous work, we observe that the cooling dynamics in the materials decelerate as the number of hot carriers increases, which we explain through a "hot-phonon bottleneck" mechanism. On the other hand, as the number of cold carriers increases, we observe an acceleration of the cooling kinetics in the samples. We describe the interplay of these opposing effects using our model, and by using series of natural approximations, reduce this model to a simple form containing terms for the carrier-carrier and carrier-phonon interactions. The model can be instrumental for evaluating the details of carrier cooling and electron-phonon couplings in a broad range of LHP optoelectronic materials