Baking impact on photoelectrochemical cells performance of electrodeposited CdSe films

Abstract

Cadmium selenide (CdSe) nanocrystalline thin films in the form of upright nanocones, perpendicular to substrate surface, are grown electrochemically onto a conducting and transparent indium-tin-oxide substrate at room temperature and impact of baking under oxygen flow on their structure, morphology, optical absorbance and dark-light photoelectrochemical cell performance is explored. Crystallinity improvement followed by enhancement in the surface roughness 11-19 nm and reduction in water contact angle from 60 degrees to 22 degrees (+/- 0.2)degrees due to baking impact showed increase in crystallite size from 25 to 100 angstrom. Increase in current density from 0.07 to 5.61 mA/cm(2) after baking under oxygen flow has promoted the conversion efficiency to 0.5% from 0.007%. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.