Effect of post-synthesis annealing on properties of SnS nanospheres and its solar cell performance

• DOI: 10.1007/s11814-016-0347-4
• Publication Date: 2017-02-12T22:34:09Z
• Authors: Nguyen Tam Nguyen...; Ha Hai Thi Hoang; Thanh Kieu Trinh; Viet Thanh Hau Pham; Ryan Patrick Smith; Chinho Park
• Keywords: 0103 physical sciences; 01 natural sciences; 7. Clean energy

SnS nanospheres (NSPs) were synthesized, and the effects of thermal annealing on the structural, morphological, chemical compositional and optical properties were examined. As-synthesized SnS NPSs with a mean size of 3-4 nm underwent a solid state morphological transformation by high temperature annealing in a nitrogen environment. Upon annealing, the size of SnS NSP increased to 5-6 nm with enhanced crystallinity. Also, the photoluminescence (PL) of the nitrogen-annealed samples slightly decreased in intensity with accompanying red-shift in spectrum. The power conversion efficiency of the solar cells using a polymer and the SnS NSPs was ~0.71%. These results confirm that the SnS NSPs demonstrate a potential as an inorganic material to be used in organic-inorganic hybrid bulk heterojunction (BHJ) photovoltaic devices.