Abstract

Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) is a nanoscale deposition technique owing to its ability to fabricate films at a controllable sub-nanometer (usually sub-angstrom) rate and to coat structures that are highly porous and/or tortuous. A variety of applications, including dynamic random access memory, lithium-ion batteries and field-effect transistors, etc, have emerged using deposited materials by ALD. Particularly, interfacial engineering by ALD has led to exciting understanding of interface and surface for solar cells. The rising number of scientific publications on ALD per year testifies to the increasing world-wide interest towards ALD technology.

In this presentation, we will demonstrate our recent research progresses on the applications of ALD in various fields of nanomaterials synthesis and solar cells. First, our results reveal that ALD can produce uniform seed layers to induce growth of nanostructures and even it can be directly utilized to prepare some unique nanostructures. Second, we tried to use ALD to manipulate the surface and interface conditions of semiconductor nanostructures, resulting in the improved conversion efficiencies of DSSCs and perovskite solar cells. Finally, ALD was also shown to be an effective technique for solar water splitting. Taken together, it is anticipated that the ALD should greatly contribute to the advances and developments in the fields of solar cells.

© 2015 Optical Society of America