Study of plasmonic nanocomposites and quantum dots incorporated third generation solar cells

Abstract

In recent years, research on renewable energy sources has become a hot newlinetopic, as the search for an alternative source of fossil fuel is the need of the hour. newlineThere are many sources available as renewable energy sources namely biomass, newlinetidal energy, wind energy, geothermal energy, compressed natural gas, solar energy, newlinenuclear energy, and radiant energy. Among all of the above energies, solar energy is newlinethe most prominent candidate as an abundant source of energy because of its easy newlineavailability and no potential damage to the environment. Thus, the investigation of newlinesolar cells starting from the first generation to the third generationhas become a vast newlinedomain of research area.Since the discovery, the two main objectives for the newlineresearchers are to enhance power conversion efficiency (PCE) as well as to reduce newlinethe cost of production of solar cells. In recent times, the third generation solar cell newlinehas gained a lot of interest mainly due to its low cost and easy fabrication process as newlinecompared to the 1st and 2nd generation solar cells. In 1991, Michel Gratzel and newlinecoworkers had discovered dye-synthesized solar cell based on a new principle, newlinewhich is different from the 1st and 2nd generation solar cells. The third generation newlinesolar cells include dye-sensitized solar cells, organic solar cells, quantum dot newlinesensitized solar cells (QDSSCs), and perovskite solar cell. Among all the third newlinegeneration solar cell technologies, dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) and quantum newlinedot sensitized solar cells (QDSSCs) have the benefit of relatively simple low-cost newlinesolution based processability in the ambient atmospheric condition. newline