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Updated: Feb 11, 2026

Harvesting Solar Energy by Means of Charge-Separating Nanocrystals and Their Solids
Published on: August 23, 2012
Improving the photovoltaic performance of the all-solid-state TiO2 NR/CuInS2 solar cell by hydrogen plasma treatment
Bingfeng Chen1, Wenzhe Niu1, Zirui Lou1
1State Key Laboratory of Silicon Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, People's Republic of China.
Abstract:
The interfacial properties of the heterojunction between p-type and n-type materials play an important role in the performance of the solar cell. In this paper, a p-type CuInS2 film was deposited on TiO2 nanorod arrays by spin coating to fabricate an all-solid-state solar cell and the TiO2 nanorod arrays were treated with hydrogen plasma(H:TiO2) to ameliorate the interfacial properties. The influence of the hydrogen plasma treatment on the performance of the solar cell was investigated. The short-circuit current density was obviously raised and the power conversion efficiency of the solar cell improved to 0.30%, which is three times that of solar cells without hydrogen plasma treatment. The enhancement of the performance is attributed to not only the enhancement of carrier separation and transport, but the reduction of the recombination of electrons and holes, which is caused by hydrogen plasma treatment.
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