What is it about?
Cu2S-containing chalcogenide solar cells are appealing and cost-effective for photovoltaics (PVs), however these materials suffer from rapid performance degradation as a result of the diffusion of copper ions into the CdS layer. In order to prevent this degradation, we report, for the first time, the use of metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) as copper sources.
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Why is it important?
MOFs are a unique class of materials for use in solar cells because they can be tailored for desired applications. Herein we post-metalated zirconium-metal-organic frameworks (UiO-67(BPY)) with copper ions to use as copper reservoirs. Results show that the Lewis-basic sites of bipyridine moieties can store copper(I) ions and these ions can be used to compensate for the diffused copper ions leading to an improvement in the stability of prepared Cu2S/CdS PV cells.
Perspectives
This achievement can ultimately lead to the fabrication of low-cost, long-lived Cu-containing PV cells by using MOFs as supporting materials.
Dr Selçuk Demir
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Improving the stability of solar cells using metal–organic frameworks, Journal of Materials Chemistry A, January 2016, Royal Society of Chemistry,
DOI: 10.1039/c6ta02609e.
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