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Photoelectrode plays significant role in excitonic solar cells i.e., (i) as an acceptor and (ii) transport media of excited state electron from the fluorophore upon absorption of energy of photon; which prevents from electron-hole recombination in the fluorophore. The evolution of opto-electronic properties of the ZnO upon change of size, however, receives insufficient attention from researchers. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to establish few realistic clusters of (ZnO)n (n = 3, 6, 12, 13, and 21) to study their opto-electronic properties using quantum chemical calculations at the level of B3LYP functional and lanl2dz basis set. Geometry of the clusters were optimized to the lowest energy structures; evaluated as realistic using a combination of harmonic frequency calculations, and experimental works. A device structure of cadmium selenide-based solar cell was used in the study to analyze the energy level alignment, and compatibility of the ZnO realistic clusters.

Zinc oxide clusters of different sizes and geometrical shapes have been synthesized and characterized experimentally and theoretically. The ZnO cluster models have been built and presented to study...

A solar cell is a device that absorbs light energy to generate electrical energy. A typical example of a solar cell is the quantum dot solar cell (QDSC), which consists of three main components: (i) fluorophore: the component that absorbs light and generates excited state electrons and holes, (ii) photoelectrode: the component that transports the excited state electron and prevents recombination of excited state electrons and holes, and (iii) electrolyte: the component that replenishes the vacancy left by the excited electron in the hole. Despite the increasing number of research in the QDSC field, to date, a device with significant photovoltaic efficiency has not been developed. In this study, the mechanism of electron transport in a zinc oxide (ZnO) photoelectrode was investigated. Two ZnO layers were fabricated using thermal evaporation method at different vacuum pressures (5 × 10-4 and 5 × 10-5 Torr). Two solar cells were fabricated using ZnO as photoelectrode, lead sulphide as fluorophore, and a mixture of carboxymethyl cellulose and polyvinyl alcohol as electrolyte. The cell which utilized the ZnO fabricated under 5 × 10-5 Torr showed the highest efficiency (h = 0.98%), with fill factor = 22.07%, short circuit current = 2.85 mA/m2, and open circuit voltage = 80.719 mV.