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Updated: Jun 10, 2026

Harvesting Solar Energy by Means of Charge-Separating Nanocrystals and Their Solids
Published on: August 23, 2012
A Silicon Nanocrystal Schottky Junction Solar Cell produced from Colloidal Silicon Nanocrystals
Chin-Yi Liu1, Uwe R Kortshagen
1Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota, 111 Church Street SE, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA. uk@me.umn.edu.
Abstract:
Solution-processed semiconductors are seen as a promising route to reducing the cost of the photovoltaic device manufacture. We are reporting a single-layer Schottky photovoltaic device that was fabricated by spin-coating intrinsic silicon nanocrystals (Si NCs) from colloidal suspension. The thin-film formation process was based on Si NCs without any ligand attachment, exchange, or removal reactions. The Schottky junction device showed a photovoltaic response with a power conversion efficiency of 0.02%, a fill factor of 0.26, short circuit-current density of 0.148 mA/cm2, and open-circuit voltage of 0.51 V.
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