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Heterogeneous system synthesis of high quality PbS quantum dots for efficient infrared solar cells

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Abstract

As promising optoelectronic materials, lead sulfide quantum dots (PbS QDs) have attracted great attention. However, their applications are substantially limited by the QD quality and/or complicated synthesis. Herein, a facile new synthesis is developed for highly monodisperse and halide passivated PbS QDs. The new synthesis is based on a heterogeneous system containing a PbCl2−Pb(OA)2 solid-liquid precursor solution. The solid PbCl2 inhibits the diffusion of monomers and maintains a high oversaturation condition for the growth of PbS QDs, resulting in high monodispersities. In addition, the PbCl2 gives rise to halide passivation on the PbS QDs, showing excellent stability in air. The high monodispersity and good passivation endow these PbS QDs with outstanding optoelectronic properties, demonstrated by a 9.43% power conversion efficiency of PbS QD solar cells with a bandgap of ∼ 0.95 eV (1,300 nm). We believe that this heterogeneous strategy opens up a new avenue optimizing for the synthesis and applications of QDs.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Nos. 2021YFA0715502 and 2021YFA0715500), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 61974052 and 61904065), the Innovation Project of Optics Valley Laboratory (No. OVL2021BG009), and the Fund from Science, Technology and Innovation Commission of Shenzhen Municipality (No. GJHZ20210705142540010), the Key R&D Program of Hubei Province (No. 2021BAA014), and the International Science and Technology Cooperation Project of Hubei Province (No. 2021EHB010). The authors thank the Testing Center of Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics (WNLO), Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan, 430074, China

    Bo Wang, Mingyu Li, Yuxuan Liu, **nyi Liang, Liang Gao & Jiang Tang

  2. School of Optical and Electronic Information, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan, 430074, China

    Yang Yang, **nzheng Lan, Jianbing Zhang & Jiang Tang

  3. Wenzhou Advanced Manufacturing Technology Research Institute, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wenzhou, 325035, China

    Liang Gao & Jianbing Zhang

  4. Shenzhen Huazhong University of Science and Technology Research Institute, Shenzhen, 518057, China

    Jianbing Zhang

  5. Optics Valley Laboratory, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Jiang Tang

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  1. Bo Wang
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  2. Mingyu Li
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  3. Yuxuan Liu
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Correspondence to Liang Gao, Jianbing Zhang or Jiang Tang.

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Wang, B., Li, M., Liu, Y. et al. Heterogeneous system synthesis of high quality PbS quantum dots for efficient infrared solar cells. Nano Res. 16, 5750–5755 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-5251-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-022-5251-0

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