All inorganic iron pyrite nano-heterojunction solar cells

Abstract

The large absorption coefficient of iron pyrite (FeS₂) nanocrystals coupled with their low-cost and vast-abundance shows great promise as a potential photovoltaic absorber. Here, we demonstrate that bulk heterojunction (BHJ) nanostructures consisting of 80 nm FeS₂ nanocubes (NCs) and 4 nm CdS quantum dot (QD) matrix, lead to a well-defined percolation network, which significantly improved open-circuit voltage (V_oc) to 0.79 V and power conversion efficiency of 1.1% under AM 1.5 solar illumination. The localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPRs) arising from p-type colloidal FeS₂ NCs exhibit plasmonic photoelectron conversion. Our approach can be applied to a wide range of colloidal nanocrystals exhibiting the LSPRs effect and is compatible with solution processing, thereby offering a general tactic to enhancing the efficiency of all inorganic BHJ solar cells and LSPRs-based NIR photodetectors.