Characterization of CdSe Nanocrystals for Hybrid Solar Cells

Hybrid solar cells have attracted considerable attention in recent years due to their high thermal and chemical stability, light weight, high carrier mobility, and low cost. The active layer of cadmium selenide (CdSe) nanoparticles-poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) is optimized in terms of their mass ratio and microstructure by using absorption and scanning electron microscope (SEM). The active layer of hybrid solar cell formed with P3HT to CdSe mass ratio as 1:9 exhibits (i) maximum absorption of solar radiation in the wavelength range of 300-850 nm, (ii) provides fine dispersion of CdSe nanocrystals (average size similar to 15 nm). Nanocrystal-polymer blend solar cell has been fabricated by the solution spin-casting process and characterized. The fabricated solar cell device shows short circuit current (J(sc)) 0.51mA/cm(2) and open circuit voltage (V-oc) 0.44V.