Continuous flow chemistry is used to trap the nucleation and growth stages of platinum-nickel nano-octahedra with second time resolution and high throughputs to probe their properties ex situ. The growth starts from poorly crystalline particles (nucleation) at 5 seconds, to crystalline 1.5 nm particles bounded by the {111}-facets at 7.5 seconds, followed by truncation and further growth to octahedral nanoparticles at 20 seconds.

Cadmium telluride (CdTe), a metallic dichalcogenide material, was utilized as an absorber layer for thin film–based solar cells with appropriate configurations and the SCAPS–1D structures program was used to evaluate the results. In both known and developing thin film photovoltaic systems, a CdS thin–film buffer layer is frequently employed as a traditional n–type heterojunction partner. In this study, numerical simulation was used to determine a suitable non–toxic material for the buffer layer that can be used instead of CdS, among various types of buffer layers (ZnSe, ZnO, ZnS and In2S3) and carrier concentrations for the absorber layer (NA) and buffer layer (ND) were varied to determine the optimal simulation parameters. Carrier concentrations (NA from 2 × 1012 cm−3 to 2 × 1017 cm−3 and ND from 1 × 1016 cm−3 to 1 × 1022 cm−3) differed. The results showed that the use of CdS as a buffer–layer–based CdTe absorber layer for solar cell had the highest efficiency (%) of 17.43%. Furthermore, high conversion efficiencies of 17.42% and 16.27% were for the ZnSe and ZnO-based buffer layers, respectively. As a result, ZnO and ZnSe are potential candidates for replacing the CdS buffer layer in thin–film solar cells. Here, the absorber (CdTe) and buffer (ZnSe) layers were chosen to improve the efficiency by finding the optimal density of the carrier concentration (acceptor and donor). The simulation findings above provide helpful recommendations for fabricating high–efficiency metal oxide–based solar cells in the lab.

The numerical modeling of a copper zinc tin sulfide (CZTS)-based kesterite solar cell is described in detail in this article. To model FTO/ZnO/CdS/CZTS/MO structured solar cells, the Solar Cell Capacitance Simulator-one-dimension (SCAPS-1D) program was utilized. Numerical modeling was used to estimate and assess the parameters of various photovoltaic thin film solar cells. The impact of different parameters on solar cell performance and conversion efficiency were explored. Because the response of a solar cell is partly determined by its internal physical mechanism, J-V characteristic characteristics are insufficient to define a device’s behavior. Regardless of the conviction in solar cell modeling, variable attributes as well as many probable conditions must be handled for simulation. Promising optimized results were obtained with a conversion efficiency of (η% = 25.72%), a fill factor of (FF% = 83.75%), a short-circuit current of (JSC  = 32.96436 mA/cm2), and an open-circuit voltage of (VOC = 0.64 V). The findings will aid in determining the feasibility of manufacturing high-efficiency CZTS-based solar cells. First, in the SCAPS-1D environment, the impacts of experimentally constructed CZTS solar cells were simulated. The experimental data was then compared to the simulated results from SCAPS-1D. After optimizing cell parameters, the conversion efficiency of the improved system was observed to rise. The influence of system factors, such as the thickness, acceptor, and donor carrier concentration densities of the absorber and electron transport layers, and the effect of temperature on the efficiency of CZTS-based photovoltaic cells, was explored using one-dimensional SCAPS-1D software. The suggested findings will be extremely useful to engineers and researchers in determining the best method for maximizing solar cell efficiency, as well as in the development of more efficient CZTS-based solar cells.

The use of electron and ion beam deposition to make devices containing discrete nanostructures as interconnectors is a well-known nanofabrication process. Classically, onedimensional materials such as carbon nanotubes (CNT) have been electrically characterized by resorting to these beam deposition methods. While much attention has been given to the interconnectors, less is known about the contacting electrodes (or leads). In particular, the structure and chemistry of the electrode-interconnector interface is a topic that deserves more attention as it is critical to understand the device behavior. Here, the structure and chemistry of Pt electrodes, deposited either with electron or ion beams and contacted to a CNT, are analyzed before and after thermally annealing the device in vacuum. Free-standing Pt nanorods, acting as beam-deposited electrode models, are also characterized pre-and postannealing. Overall, the as-deposited leads contain a non-negligible amount of amorphous carbon that is consolidated, upon heating, as a partially graphitized outer shell enveloping a Pt core. This observation raises pertinent questions regarding the definition of electrodesnanostructure interfaces in electrical devices, in particular long-standing assumptions of metal-CNT contacts fabricated by direct beam deposition methods.