Morphology and stoichiometry control of hierarchical CuInSe 2/SnO 2 nanostructures by directed electrochemical assembly for solar energy harvesting

Juan Sun, Cheng Sun, Sudip K. Batabyal*, Phong D. Tran, Stevin S. Pramana, Lydia H. Wong, Subodh G. Mhaisalkar

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

CuInSe 2/SnO 2 core-shell and hierarchical branched nanostructures were produced by directed electrochemical assembly. By changing the spatial electric field along the deposition region, we can control the morphology and stoichiometry of deposited product from In-poor-CuInSe 2 nanoparticles to near stoichiometry CuInSe 2 branched nanowires. A combination of FESEM, TEM, XRD and Raman spectroscopy investigations reveals that both morphology and chemical compositions of CuInSe 2 strongly depend on the spatial electric field distribution on the SnO 2/Si substrate. We observed that higher reducing potential can assist the formation of CuInSe 2 with uniform coverage at the cathode side, but only In-poor-CuInSe 2 nanoparticles are formed on the anode side. Optical and photo-electrochemical examination confirmed the potential application of these core-shell nanostructures for solar energy harvesting.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)18-21
Number of pages4
JournalElectrochemistry Communications
Volume15
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Feb 2012
Externally publishedYes

ASJC Scopus Subject Areas

  • Electrochemistry

Keywords

  • CuInSe solar cells
  • CuInSe /SnO core-shell nanostructure
  • Directed electrochemical assembly
  • Electrochemical deposition
  • Hierarchical branched nanostructure

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