QUANTUM DOT PBS SOLAR

CELL’S (PHOTOVOLTAIC)
Dr Fozia Z. Haque*, Dr Vasudev Thakre* Nitin Paliwal*

Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology, Bhopal [M.P]

Department of Physics [M.Sc.]
QUANTUM DOT PBS SOLAR CELL’S (PHOTOVOLTAIC)
Dr Fozia Z. Haque*, Dr Vasudev Thakre* Nitin Paliwal*

*Department of physics, Maulana Azad National institute of technology, Bhopal

ABSTRACT

Colloidal quantum dots (CQDs) are of great interest for photovoltaic (PV) technologies as
they possess the benefits of solution-processability, size-tunability, and roll-to-roll
manufacturability, as well as unique capabilities to harvest near-infrared (NIR) radiation.
During the last decade, lab scale CQD solar cells have achieved rapid improvement in the
power conversion efficiency (PCE) from ~1% to 18%, which will potentially exceed 20% in
the next few years and approach the performance of other PV technologies, such as
perovskite solar cells and organic solar cells. In the meanwhile, CQD solar cells exhibit long
lifetimes either under shelf storage or continuous operation, making them highly attractive to
industry. However, in order to meet the industrial requirements, mass production techniques
are necessary to scale up the fabrication of those lab devices into large-area PV modules,
such as roll-to-toll coating. This paper reviews the recent developments of large-area CQD
solar cells with a focus on various fabrication methods and their principles. It covers the
progress of typical large-area coating techniques, including spray coating, blade coating, dip
coating, and slot-die coating. It also discusses next steps and new strategies to accomplish the
ultimate goal of the low-cost large-area fabrication of CQD solar cells and emphasizes how
artificial intelligence or machine learning could facilitate the developments of CQD solar cell
research.

1. Introduction is causing climate change and

Energy is directly linked to the well-
being and prosperity of all countries
and is a determinant for the
industrialization and quality of human
life. However, traditional energy
sources, like coal, oil, and natural gas,
are non-renewable, and their unstable
prices usually cause disturbance
globally. In the meanwhile, the heavy
dependence on non-renewable energy
environmental crisis, which has
attracted universal attention. One
solution to this issue is to develop
renewable energy technologies, such as
wind, solar, as well as geothermal and
tidal energy-based solutions. Amongst,
solar energy [1] is especially attractive,
because it possesses numerous
advantages including clean, free,
abundance, and more uniform
 distribution around the globe compared
with other renewable energy and it can
be accessed from the space as well [2].
ABOUT QUANTUM DOT
Quantum dots are semiconducting particles
that have been reduced below the size of
the Exciton Bohr radius.
Quantum dots have been referred to as
"artificial atoms". These energy levels are
tuneable by changing their size, which in
turn defines the bandgap. The dots can be
grown over a range of sizes, allowing them
to express a variety of bandgaps without
changing the underlying material or
construction techniques.
Bohr excitation radius for Si is little less
than 5 nm, so Si nano particle is embedded
in the high band diagram dielectric
material (SiC, SiO2, Si3N4) for possible
change in band gap
As size of nano particle < bohr exciton
radius , Ec & Ev split and move away from
each other, means effective band gap
increases.
Change in electrical and optical properties
is known as Quantum confinement of
carriers. The small Si nanocrystals
showing the increased band gap due to
quantum confinement are called Quantum
Dots.(QDs)
By turning the size of Si-QDs, the band
gap as high as 2.7 eV can be obtained
Quantum dots are semiconductor Nano
crystals.
They are made of the same materials as
ordinary semiconductors (mainly
combinations of transition metals and /or
metalloids).
Unlike ordinary bulk semiconductors,
which are generally macroscopic objects,
quantum dots are extremely small, on the
order of few nanometres. They are very
nearly zero-dimensional.
TYPES OF SOLAR CELL’S
As we know Solar panels are the device
which absorb sun rays to generate
electricity. The basic unit of a solar panel
is Solar cell which is made up of by
semiconductor mostly silicon. Many of
solar cells are connected together to form
solar panels. Basically, there are three
types of solar panels available in the
market. Depending on the crystal
structure it is of two type:-
1. MONO-CRYSTALLINE SOLAR
CELL
2. POLY-CRYSTALLINE SOLAR
CELL
3. THIN-FILM SOLAR CELL
Mono-Crystalline Solar Cell
First of all, why it is called as mono-
crystalline because it is made up of a single
crystal of pure silicon. It is the oldest type
of solar panel. These cells are made from a
cylindrical silicon ingot that has been cut
into thin wafers. Monocrystalline cells are
more efficient than other types of solar
cells, and thus monocrystalline panels are
often used in residential and
commercial solar energy systems. Because
monocrystalline solar cells are made out of
a single crystal of silicon, electrons can
flow easier through the cell, which makes
the PV cell efficiency higher than other
types
of solar panels. They are made by growing a single crystal of silicon in a laboratory and it is
very expensive. These cells appear black due to the interaction between sunlight and pure
silicon. These are used in a variety of applications, such as spacecraft, handheld calculators,
and solar-powered homes.
shaping and placement of each
crystal and
POLY-crystalline solar cell
As it is made up of several crystals
of silicon, it named as poly-
crystalline solar panel. These
panels are most popular panel
among all the
most of the silicon is utilized during
solar panels.
production. So, very less waste is
Fragments
produced. The acceptable maximum
of silicon
temperature of polycrystalline solar panels
crystals
is 85 °C while the acceptable minimum
are
temperature is -40 °C. Polycrystalline solar
melted and then cut
panels are less expensive to produce than
into wafers to make these panels.
monocrystalline solar panels, but they are
Polycrystalline solar panels are
also less efficient. They are less efficient
more eco-friendly than
because the grain boundaries between the
monocrystalline solar panels as
crystals act as barriers to the flow of
they do not require individual
electrons.

Advantages Disadvantages

1. Among all solar panel types, 1. These are most expensive.

monocrystalline cells have the highest 2. Most monocrystalline solar cells have a
efficiency typically in the 15-20% range. temperature coefficient of around -0.3%C
2. As this solar panel is more efficient so it to -0.5%C. So when the temperature rises,
produces more power. the monocrystalline solar cell will
3. These are having greater heat resistance. temporarily lose 0.3% to 0.5% of its
4. In case of low level of sunlight, it can make efficiency.
power. 3. There is a lot of waste material when the
5. Manufacturers state that this form of solar silicon is cut during manufacture.
cell lasts the longest, it gives 25-year
warranty.
6. monocrystalline solar cells can be recycled.
As it is made of 3 main components i.e.
monocrystalline cells, Glass and Metal.
These are all can recycle.
 Advantages Disadvantages
1. The manufacturing process of these panels are 1. These are less efficient between 13%-
cheaper and easier than the monocrystalline 16%.
cells. 2. It has lower output rate.
2. These panels have high power density. 3. It needs more roof space for installation.
3. During its manufacturing process, it avoids 4. They damage easily when exposed to high
silicon wastes and requires very few fossil fuels. temperatures.
4. These are more eco-friendly than
monocrystalline solar panels.

These solar panels are used in a variety of For these panels there is no any predictable
applications, including consumer crystal structure. These are very thin so it
electronics, solar thermal power, and is lightweight and flexible. There are
photovoltaic power generation. several types of thin-film solar panels:
amorphous silicon (a-Si), cadmium
telluride (CdTe), and copper indium
gallium selenide (CIGS) or gallium-free
THIN-FILM SOLAR CELL
CIS.
A thin-film solar
panel is made of In the world of solar panels, there
thin films of are three main types:
semiconductors monocrystalline and polycrystalline,
deposited on glass, plastic or metal. These and thin film solar panel. All have
are cheaper alternatives to single or multi their own advantages and
crystalline cells. Their main drawbacks are disadvantages. So, which type of
that they have low efficiency and they solar panel is right for you? It
degrade in outdoor applications. They depends on your needs and budget.
perform best when used indoors with Read on to learn more about the
diffused or indoor lights. Thus, they are differences between monocrystalline,
ideally suited in applications such as polycrystalline and thin-film solar
pocket calculators, electronic watches, panels.
small radio receivers and low power hand-
held electronic instruments. COATING TECHNIQUES:-
There are various coating methods for
Advantages Disadvantages liquid films, which have been extensively
1. It is very 1) As they up a
used in industry fields, however, only a
flexible and lot of space so
can be it is not good few of them are capable of producing
applicable to a for domestic high-quality semiconductor thin films. In
range of use. this section, we will review these coating
situations and 2) It has low methods which are frequently used to
building types. efficiency . produce semiconductor films from
2. Large no of 3) It has shorter precursor solutions or inks, including spin
producting is lifespan and so
coating, spray coating, blade coating, dip
easy to shoter
achieve, warranty coating, and slot-die coating. For CQD
making them periods. solar cells, spin coating is the most widely
potentially used coating method, followed by spray
cheaper to
produce then
crystalline
solar cells.
3. It can install in
shadow area.
coating and then blade coating. However,
regarding to slot-die coating, there have
been no reports, thus we will introduce the
principles and examples from other solar
cell technologies to exhibit its potential in
large-area CQD solar cells.
SPIN COATING
Spin coating is the first choice for CQD
solar cell research. The best-performed
CQD solar cells [42,44] are fabricated with
this method and a few important concepts
[41,52,70] are being developed. Though
the film formation mechanism of spin
coating is different from that of other
large-area deposition methods, it provides
a reliable platform for exploring materials
science and device physics. This
subsection mainly discusses the underlying
principles of spin coating and emphasizes
its difference from other deposition
techniques. Spin coating is a fluid flow
process [71–76] and is governed by the
combined effects of convection and
diffusion. As shown in Fig. 7, during the
spin-coating process, inks or solutions are
dispensed on a substrate which is mounted
on a rotating disk. As the disk starts to
accelerate, the inks or solutions spread, the
solvents evaporate, and thus the solutes or
suspensions are left, finally forming a
uniform film. Several theoretical studies
on spin coating of colloidal
suspensions have been
reported .
The
effects of the angular velocity, initial
solvent weight fraction, solvent property,
and spin-coating protocol on the evolution
of temperature and concentration profiles
in the liquid film during the spin-coating
process have been examined numerically
and verified experimentally. In general, the
final film thickness (h) is found to vary
with the angular velocity (Ω) according to
h¼Ω 1=2 ,
and also depends on the solution viscosity
and diffusivity. In addition, by controlling
the substrate temperature, solvent mixture,
or surrounding atmosphere, it is possible to
further adjust the film properties,
especially the film morphology, which is
vital for high-quality solar cells. Thus,
optimizing the ink or solution properties
and spin-coating protocols, including the
spinning speed, acceleration, spinning
steps, and heating, is a potential avenue to
achieve a good film.
For example, the final film thickness
could be affected by the solvent
remarkably. With a low boiling point
solvent, such as BTA, a PbS CQD ink with
a concentration of 200 mg/mL led to a PbS
CQD film with the thickness of ~350 nm
at a spin-coating speed of 2500 rpm .
While with a high boiling point solvent,
such as DMF, the film thickness was ~250
nm at a lower spin-coating speed of 2000
rpm, even though under the same CQD
concentration . It indicates that a lower
boiling point solvent results in a thicker
film. As for the same solvent, the thickness
could be effectively tuned by changing the
spin speed or concentration. In Ref. Ma’s
group further investigated how the
concentration of a DMF solvent based PbS
CQD ink affects the CQD film thickness.
As shown in Fig. 8, the thickness varies
approximately linearly with the ink
 substrates and difficult to obtain large-area
films with good uniformity and a sufficient
thickness. As an alternative method, spray
coating could precisely control the
thickness and uniformity of CQDs films
and is an ideal way for mass production.

Shows a typical spray-coating process

where small droplets dispersed in the
concentration. This is similar to that found carrier gas are collected by the substrate
in other types of solution-processed thin [80]. It is a multi-step process, including
films, such as the ZnO sol-gel [78] or the atomization of liquid solutions or
polymer [79]. The highest PCE value in mixtures, droplet flight and evaporation,
PbS CQD solar cells was recently reported
by Sun et al. which was fabricated by spin
coating with the SPLE- based PbS CQD
ink [44]. In this work, the authors
proposed a post-treatment method (see Fig.
9) to improve the electrical transport of the
CQD film, and demonstrated that the post-
treatment of the spin-coated CQD film
with a perovskite-type precursor solution
could induce surface chemistry that
converts the less conductive materials
(also named as matrix) surrounding CQDs droplet impact on the substrate, droplet
into a high conductive matrix, thus diffusion, retreat, recoil, drying, solute
improving the carrier transport and leading adhesion, and self-bonding with the
to better device performance. substrate [81]. To obtain high-quality
sprayed films, all of these steps must be
SPRAY COATING well understood and precisely controlled.
Although various
deposition methods based In the spray-coating process, the liquid
on spin coating have been precursor is atomized and sprayed by the
successfully developed, pressurized gas in the spray gun, the tiny
most of them were carried liquids drop onto the substrate (usually
out on small lab-scale being heated), the solvent evaporates
rapidly, and thus the solute deposits on the
substrate to form a thin film. The whole is feasible to prepare uniform coatings and
process can be done under atmospheric fill the pores of porous materials.
environmental conditions. Uniform thin
films can be achieved by simply
controlling gas pressure via injecting the
SPRAY COATING OF PBS CQD
high-pressure gas into the nozzle, and the
SOLAR CELLS WITH LBL SSE.
thickness is controllable and determined
In 2015, Kramer et al. demonstrated a PbS
by spraying cycles. Compared with spin
coating, spray coating is a very effective
and expandable method for depositing thin
films on both hard and flexible substrates.
Besides, it also exhibits several advantages
in the field of CQD solar cells: First, the
utilization rate of precursor solutions or
inks in the spraying process is ~100%,
contributing to the reduction in the
CQD solar cell fabricated by spray coating
production cost; second, spray coating is
for the first time [63]. They used oleate-
applicable to almost all surfaces, making it
suitable for flexible substrates based CQD capped PbS in octane as the CQD solution.
With low-concentration PbS CQDs (3.33
solar cells, wearable devices, automobile
mg/mL), they showed that a monolayer-
surfaces, or urban infrastructure. These
thick PbS CQD film was precisely formed.
enable spray coating widely used in
various CQD solar cell studies. By developing an automated spraying-
based LbL setup, they fabricated PbS CQD
SPRAY COATING OF CDSE CQD solar cells with a depletion-heterojunction
DYE SENSITIZED SOLAR CELLS. structure [70] and achieved average PCE
In 2010, I’m et al. demonstrated a CQD of 6.5% with champion PCE of 8.1%,
sensitized solar cell with spray-coated comparable to the average PCE value
CdSe CQDs having a ZnS glue layer [82]. (6.7%) of spin-coated devices (see Fig.
They showed that with spray coating, 11). Further, they also fabricated PbS
CdSe CQDs can penetrate into the bottom CQD solar cells on flexible substrates,
most TiO2 layer, achieving uniform such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET),
coverage of mesoporous TiO2 (mp-TiO2) and achieved PCE of 7.2% [83]. These
films. With annealing at 450 C for 5 min, studies indicate that spray coating has
CQDs were in close contact with the mp-
great potential to make solar cells on
TiO2 layer, which is advantageous to the
arbitrary substrates.
photocarrier transfer process within the
solar cell. As a result, this CQD sensitized SPRAY COATING OF PBS CQD
solar cell realized Voc of 0.57 V, Jsc of SOLAR CELLS WITH ONE-STEP
11.2 mA/cm2 , and FF of 0.35, SSE
corresponding to PCE of 2.2%. Although Later in 2016, Park et al. also employed
they did not investigate the impact of spray coating to fabricate PbS CQD solar
spraying parameters on the film properties, cells but with a different coating recipe
this study demonstrated that spray coating [64]. Instead of multiple LbL cycles, a
one-step SSE method was applied. As
shown in Fig. 13, the PbS CQD octane
solution with a much higher concentration
of 50 mg/mL was adopted, and thus a thick
PbS layer was sprayed. The sprayed film
was dipped into a precursor solution for
SSE, where the solution was composed of
mixed tetrabutylammonium iodide (TBAI)
and EDT ligands with a specific
TBAI/EDT ratio of 15:4. With an
optimized SSE time, the prepared solar
cells achieved PCE of 4%, Voc of 0.57 V,
Jsc of 11.79 mA/cm2, and FF of 0.60. The
current density versus voltage curves for
the devices with different ligand exchange
times are shown in Fig. 14. It shows that
with an exchange time of 50 s, the device
performed best, indicating that a moderate
interval of soaking could achieve a good
ligand exchange result. Although due to its
thinner active layer of 140 nm, inferior
performance with much lower Jsc was
resulted, compared with the devices (>200
nm) made by Kramer et al. [63], the
fabrication time of the CQD layer was
greatly reduced. Because only one ligand
exchange cycle was conducted in this
method while more than 10 exchange
cycles are required in the common LbL
process. It can be expected that the
performance will be improved by further
optimizing the device structure and layer
thickness.
BLADE COATING
Blade coating is another widely used large-
area thin film fabrication method for CQD
solar cells, which is fast, simple, and
straight forward. Table 2 compares the
time consumption for the fabrication of a
1-inch-by-1-inch film with CQD inks.
Obviously, blade coating offers the fastest
manufacturing speed, which only takes ~1
s to make such a high-quality film. Fig. 19
shows a schematic of blade coating, in
which the blade is usually mounted on a
moveable track. As the blade travels along
the plane parallel to the substrate, the CQD
ink is extended over the substrate. The
thickness of the CQD film can be
controlled easily by adjusting the distance
between the blade edge and the substrate
surface, and the film properties could be
tuned by other processing parameters, such
as substrate heating and the surrounding
environment. Since the substrate is usually
fixed, an active drying process might be
necessary in the blade-coating method.
However, blade coating is still superior to
spin coating in terms of the consumption
of both time and cost. For example, the
utilization rate of CQD inks in blade-
coating methods is extremely high, and
usually, only a small amount of 5% is
wasted. Here we will further introduce
recent studies focused on CQD solar cells
prepared by blade coating. Blade coating
has the advantage of easily forming thick
CQD active layers. Compared with spin
coating, the thickness of the bladecoated
film can be controlled easily by tuning the
blade edge height and the coating speed.
The additional control makes it easier to
achieve a thicker film with the same
solution concentration, allowing for more
device engineering methods. In 2020, Fan
et al. demonstrated an advanced blade-
coated PbS CQD solar cell by combining
new ligand exchange, solvent engineering,
and the bladecoating strategy [23]. With
blade coating, smooth micron-thick CQD
active layers were achieved, which are
very difficult for spin coating. However,
this is not enough to get high-performance
solar cells, as thicker active layers require
better exciton diffusion, which is exactly
one of the major bottlenecks to achieve
higher efficiency. However, the SPLE
protocol developed for smaller CQDs was
found to be not applicable for larger
CQDs. Because with traditional SPLE, the
dispersivity of larger CQDs is poor. Fan et
al. developed new SPLE methods by
introducing an additional resolvation step
after the initial SPLE to improve the
dispersivity. Furthermore, they found the
widely used solvent for redispersing CQDs
would cause the film cracked, once the
thickness exceeds 1 μm. Thus they also
updated the solvent system with a mixture
of DMF, dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO),
BTA, and phenethylamine. With all these
three innovations, they achieved the
thickest (1.2 μm) PbS CQD solar cell
which has been reported. This solar cell is
capable of reaching EQE of 80% with both
the first exciton peak and the nearest
Fabry-Perot resonance peak in the infrared
region between 1100 nm and 1800 nm,
which is a feat in CQD solar cells.
OTHER LESS-USED LARGE-AREA
COATING TECHNIQUES
DIP COATING
Dip coating is a simple and effective
coating
technique
commonly
used in various
industry fields
and has
become a main coating method in the
fabrication of thin films with a purpose-
built dip coater. Under optimized
conditions, dip coating not only could
successfully manufacture highly uniform
films, but also is advantageous to other
coating techniques with regard to its
simplicity in design which contributes to
low costs of installation and maintenance.
However, due to its difficulty in
simultaneous control of solution spreading
and evaporation, the viscous flow
dynamics and evaporation should be
carefully addressed. To do so, coating
parameters and other factors, such as the
withdrawal speed, temperature, airflow,
and cleanliness, must be closely monitored
during the coating process, which requires
much deep understanding and skilled
coating experience. As a matter of fact, for
the CQD solar cell field, dip coating is less
used in practice. It was only developed for
the LbL process [41, 87–97], since the
self-assembly monolayer with dip coating
is relatively easy. Here we will briefly
review several dip-coating examples used
in the CQD field. Earlier studies are
focused on dye-sensitized solar cells
(DSSCs). The reason is that porous TiO2
layers are employed in DSSCs, allowing
that the pores can be easily filled by dip
coating. For example, Liu and Wang
demonstrated that PbS CQDs could be
successfully deposited onto porous TiO2
layers by dipping the TiO2-coated
substrate into Pbþ and S2
ion solutions alternatively, leading to in-
place chemical reactions [90]. This is
commonly termed the dip-SILAR method,
where SILAR means the successive ionic
layer adsorption and reaction. With a
similar dip-SILAR method,
Ratanatawanate et al. fabricated PbS
CQDs doped TiO2 nanotubes by dipping a
TiO2-nanotubes-coated substrate into the
Pb(NO3)2 aqueous solution and the Na2S
aqueous solution, respectively [87]. Dip
coating was later employed to fabricate
CQD solar cells with the LbL protocol,
where carboxylic-capped CQDs were dip-
coated onto the substrate, and SSE and
rinsing were conducted as well. For
example, Luther et al. reported a Schottky

solar cell based on PbSe CQD thin films in
2008 [41]. The PbSe CQD thin films were
fabricated as follows: ITO substrates were
dipped by hand into a 20 mL beaker filled
with the oleate-capped PbSe CQD solution
in hexane (6 mg/mL), followed by a
second beaker containing 0.01 M EDT in
acetonitrile. The 25 to 40 dip-coating
cycles were performed to fabricate films of
different thicknesses. Based on the
deposited PbSe CQD films, the
corresponding device obtained PCE of
2.1%. Later in 2010, Ju et al. adopted the
same way to fabricate the PbS CQD active
layer and thus reported a PbS CQD solar
cell, which increased PCE to >3% by
introducing another TiO2 layer into the
device [89]. However, there has been no
report on dip coating with CQD inks.
Because the thickness control is a
challenge for the solvent used for the CQD
ink. Solvent engineering might be
conducive to a breakthrough in this realm.
SLOT-DIE COATING
Slot-die coating is another used deposition
method in industry, which can be easily
integrated with roll-to-roll processes, as
shown in Fig. 25. However, very few
studies on slot-die-coated CQD solar cells
have been reported. As a comparison, slot-
die-coated perovskite [98–107] and
organic [108–114] solar cells have seen
rapid growth. Here we will mainly
introduce the general principles of slot-die
coating and several application examples
taken from other types of solar cells.
Solvent engineering is of special
importance for slot-die coating because
solvents could affect the substrate
wettability, meniscus dynamics, and film
drying and crystallization. For example,
Yang et al. employed slot-die coating and
successfully fabricated efficient and stable
large-area formamidinium-cesium
perovskite parallel solar modules [107]. In
this work, diphenyl sulfoxide (DPSO) was
added into the
FA0.83Cs0.17PbI2.83Br0.17 precursor
solution with a combined solvent of DMF
and N-methyl-2-pyrrolidinone (NMP).
They found that the DPSO additive could
enlarge the nucleation energy barrier,
effectively retard the natural nucleation of
perovskite during the coating process, and
stabilize the wet precursor film. The
results indicate that the solvent plays a
decisive role in the microscale processes.
It not only affects the dynamics within the
ink but also modulates the macroscale
morphologies of the film. Currently,
similar solvents for perovskite inks have
been used in CQD inks. For example,
DMF is commonly used in both CQD
[59,60] and perovskite [107] inks. Other
solvents or solvent mixtures, such as γ-
butyrolactone (GBL) and 2-methoxy-
ethanol (2-ME):DMSO, are also potential
alternatives for CQD inks.
CONCLUSION
CQDs have been attracting much attention
because they can absorb light above their
energy bandgap with a high extinction
coefcient and can be processed by using a
solution process. Signifcant progress has
been achieved in the development of CQD
PVs by understanding their surface
characteristics and using surface
modifcation to obtain superior
characteristics that distinguish them from
general bulk semiconductors. In the future,
we aim to address the various issues
presented in this article and to
commercialize CQD PVs along with the
commercialization of CQD display felds.
Here we reviewed the recent advances in
utilizing colloidal quantum dots as light
harvesters in various types of photovoltaic
devices. At present the power conversion
efficiencies of colloidal quantum dot solar
cells are about 5%. Further research is
needed in this area to screen potential
systems which could provide a roadmap
for the design of super-efficient solar cells.
Development of high performance
photovoltaic cells will necessitate the use
of high quality nanocrystals with good
material properties. In achieving this goal
surface state of the nanocrystals should be
well passivated. This could be achieved
either by using organic or inorganic
capping ligands. In conclusion, well
ordered semiconductor nanoparticles in
photovoltaic cells are tought to bring a
major breakthrough in this field.
Crystalline semiconductor solar cells
besides possessing low efficiency due to
their band gab limit (Shockley-Queisser
limit)[53] they are expensive in terms of
manufacturing cost per generated Watt of
delivered electric power. In single junction
bulky semiconductor solar cells, photon of
energies less than the band gap are wasted
since none of them are absorbed.
Moreover, excess energy of those photons
with energies greater than the bandgap is
wasted as heat as a result of hot-carriers
thermalization. A quantum dot is a
crystalline semiconductor nanoparticles.
This paper reviewed recent studies on the
fabrication of large-area CQD solar cells
with various roll-to-roll compatible
techniques. Amongst, spray coating and
blade coating are shown to be promising
for producing high-performance CQD
solar cells. While other coating techniques,
including slot-die coating and dip coating,
which have been used for perovskite and
organic solar cells, do not attracted much
attention in the field of CQD solar cells.
The performance of CQD solar cells based
on those methods is still low compared
with that of other solution-processed
technologies, such as perovskite and
organic solar cells. There is still a long
way to go. However, CQDs are also
promising for solar cell applications. There
are two main merits which make CQD
solar cells highly attractive. First, CQDs,
especially lead chalcogenide CQDs, could
harvest NIR radiation. By stacking CQD
solar cells with silicon, perovskite, and
organic solar cells to form tandem solar
cells, the device could collect more
sunlight and achieve higher PCE. Second,
CQD solar cells show excellent long-term
stability. It has been verified that
unencapsulated PbS CQD solar cells are
stable under both shelf storage and
continuous operation [118]. For example,
Choi et al. reported that the
unencapsulated PbS CQD solar cell
passivated by PbX could retain >80% of
its initial efficiency after 300 h continuous
operation in air.
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