Abstract
For nanomaterials, surface chemistry can dictate fundamental material properties, including charge-carrier lifetimes, doping levels, and electrical mobilities. In devices, surface defects are usually the key limiting factor for performance, particularly in solar-energy applications. Here, we develop a strategy to uniformly and selectively passivate defect sites in semiconductor nanomaterials using a vapor-phase process termed targeted atomic deposition (TAD). Because defects often consist of atomic vacancies and dangling bonds with heightened reactivity, we observe-for the widely used p-type cathode nickel oxide-that a volatile precursor such as trimethylaluminum can undergo a kinetically limited selective reaction with these sites. The TAD process eliminates all measurable defects in NiO, leading to a nearly 3-fold improvement in the performance of dye-sensitized solar cells. Our results suggest that TAD could be implemented with a range of vapor-phase precursors and be developed into a general strategy to passivate defects in zero-, one-, and two-dimensional nanomaterials.
Original language | American English |
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Pages (from-to) | 4754-4761 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces |
Volume | 8 |
Issue number | 7 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 24 Feb 2016 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2016 American Chemical Society.
NREL Publication Number
- NREL/JA-5900-66032
Keywords
- atomic layer deposition
- DFT+U calculations
- dye-sensitized solar cell
- nickel oxide
- p-type metal oxide