Synthesis of CuS Nanorods: Effect of α-Alanine on their sizes and their applications in solar cell

Abstract

Semiconducting nanorods, whose particle sizes are in 1-100 nm range, have very unusual properties. The quantum dots have band gaps that depend in a complicated fashion upon a various number of factors. First of all we synthesized CuS nanorods through the co- precipitation method. The confirmation of the CuS synthesis is done by the FTIR spectroscopy. The further confirmation that CuS exists in the form of quantum dots is done by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Optical studies are carried out by steady-state fluorescence and UV-Visible techniques. XRD patterns further suggest that CuS nanoparticles are grown in hexagonal crystal structure with the average crystallite size ~15.6 nm and by increasing the concentration of α-Alanine the size is decreased. SEM images suggest that the CuS nanoparticles have been agglomerated and appeared in the form of rod shape. The quantum dots sensitized solar cell is fabricated by spin coating method. Finally the voltage current measurements are done by solar simulator, which show the Voc 0.77 & 0.79 V, Jsc 0.00258 & 0.00273 Acm-2 and the efficiency (%) 0.97and 1.2 for the CuS nanorods containing the 1mM and 51 mM of α-Alanine respectively. .