CdS surface encapsulated ZnO nanorods: Synthesis to solar cell application

Surface coating of CdS nanoparticles over the ZnO nanorods have been performed by using simple successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction at room temperature. Initially, the seed/compact ZnO layer have been deposited via SILAR (successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction) on to fluorine doped tin oxide coated glass (FTO) substrate followed by synthesis of ZnO nanorods by chemical bath deposition method. The synthesized nano heterostructure was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV–Vis spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), field emission-scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) and high resolution-transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) techniques. The photovoltaic performance of the cell was recorded with a conversion efficiency of 0.123% under 100 mW/cm 2 simulated sunlight at AM 1.5G conditions.