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Design and Control of Nanostructures and Interfaces for Excitonic Solar Cells

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Polymer-Engineered Nanostructures for Advanced Energy Applications

Part of the book series: Engineering Materials and Processes ((EMP))

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Abstract

Excitonic solar cells (ESCs) including dye-sensitized solar cells, quantum dot-sensitized solar cells, perovskites solar cells, and inverted organic photovoltaics are built upon metal oxide semiconductors (MOSs), which have attracted considerable attention recently and showed a promising development for the next generation solar cells. The development of nanotechnology has created various MOS nanostructures to open up new perspectives for their exploitation, significantly improving the performances of ESCs. One of the outstanding advantages is that the nanostructured mesoporous MOSs offer large specific surface area for loading a large number of active materials (dyes, quantum dots, or perovskites) so as to capture a sufficient fraction of photons as well as to facilitate efficient charge transfer. This review focuses on the recent work on the design, fabrication, and surface modification of nanostructured MOSs to improve the performance of ESCs. The key issues for the improvement of efficiency, such as enhancing light harvesting and reducing surface charge recombination, are discussed in this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Advanced Materials and Technology, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, 100083, China

    Jianjun Tian & Shixun Wang

  2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, 98195-2120, USA

    Guozhong Cao

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  1. Jianjun Tian
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  2. Shixun Wang
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  3. Guozhong Cao
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Correspondence to Jianjun Tian or Guozhong Cao .

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  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Zhiqun Lin

  2. School of Chemistry & Materials Science, South-Central University for Nationalities, Wuhan, Hubei, China

    Yingkui Yang

  3. School of Chemistry & Materials Science, South-Central University for Nationalities, Wuhan, Hubei, China

    Aiqing Zhang

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Tian, J., Wang, S., Cao, G. (2017). Design and Control of Nanostructures and Interfaces for Excitonic Solar Cells. In: Lin, Z., Yang, Y., Zhang, A. (eds) Polymer-Engineered Nanostructures for Advanced Energy Applications. Engineering Materials and Processes. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57003-7_17

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