Premium
Cover Picture: Zinc oxide films and nanomaterials for photovoltaic applications (Phys. Status Solidi RRL 2/2014)
Author(s) -
Djurišić Aleksandra B.,
Liu Xiang,
Leung Yu Hang
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
physica status solidi (rrl) – rapid research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Reports
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.786
H-Index - 68
eISSN - 1862-6270
pISSN - 1862-6254
DOI - 10.1002/pssr.201470508
Subject(s) - materials science , nanomaterials , nanotechnology , photovoltaic system , zinc , hybrid solar cell , polymer , oxide , nanostructure , band gap , optoelectronics , polymer solar cell , solar cell , electrical engineering , composite material , engineering , metallurgy
Zinc oxide (ZnO) is a versatile wide band gap semiconducting material, which is of great interest for a huge range of practical applications including applications in photovoltaic devices. One of the advantageous and attractive features of ZnO is that a large variety of nanostructured morphologies can be synthesized with simple but low‐cost methods. In their Review@RRL (pp. 123–132 ), Djurišić et al. provide an overview of ZnO applications in solar cells (for both thin films and nanostructures). ZnO‐based materials can be used as electrodes and/or scattering/light trapping layers, as well as electron transport layers (in dye‐sensitized solar cells and polymer solar cells). For each of these applications, there are certain key properties of ZnO which should be optimized. In some specific applications, like polymer‐based solar cells, there can also be practical device preparation difficulties (infiltration of the polymer into nanostructured ZnO). Thus, for each type of application, the authors briefly summarize the common research directions, as well as existing problems and unresolved questions.