Site-Selective Passivation of Defects in NiO Solar Photocathodes by Targeted Atomic Deposition

ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
Cory J FlynnJames F Cahoon

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.

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Citations

Sep 23, 2016·Journal of the American Chemical Society·M Kyle BrennamanThomas J Meyer
Dec 28, 2016·ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces·R BrisseB Jousselme
Jul 22, 2017·ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces·Robert J DillonJohn M Papanikolas
Feb 1, 2018·Angewandte Chemie·Matthew V SheridanThomas J Meyer
Apr 10, 2018·Chemical Science·Luca D'AmarioLeif Hammarström
May 8, 2019·Advanced Materials·Erkan AydinStefaan De Wolf
Oct 3, 2020·Molecules : a Journal of Synthetic Chemistry and Natural Product Chemistry·Fang XuXueqin Zhou
Jun 8, 2021·Chemical Science·Diego Di GirolamoAntonio Abate
Apr 4, 2017·ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces·Luca D'AmarioHaining Tian
Feb 22, 2018·Journal of the American Chemical Society·Onyu JungJames M Mayer
Aug 16, 2017·Journal of the American Chemical Society·Degao WangThomas J Meyer
Oct 1, 2021·Chemical Society Reviews·Ana Belén Muñoz-GarcíaMarina Freitag

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