News

The current development of solar cells that are based on quantum dots does enable higher efficiencies, however, much more effort will have to be devoted to the field in order to achieve long-term stability of the dots.

The group of researchers from the Centre for Electrochemical Technologies (CIDETEC) and the Jaume 1 University (both are Spanish institutions), which also included Mr. Vasko Jovanovski, PhD, from the Laboratory for Analytical Chemistry at the National Institute of Chemistry Slovenia, have developed a robust S^2-/S_n^2- electrolyte which they designed to be compatible with CdSe quantum dots. The new ionic liquid based on the pyrrolidine cation achieved the efficiency of 1.86% at the short circuit current of 14 mAcm^-1 and exhibited an improved long-term operation of the system for more than 10 days. The photovoltaic characterisation has shown a limitation of the solar cell, especially in terms of electrolyte regeneration brought on by poorer catalysis on the counter (auxiliary) electrode and the high level of recombination. Further improvement of these factors will be required in order to achieve significant strides in the efficiency of solar cells that are based on quantum dots.

The discovery was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, (impact factor 9.019).