Date of Award

2011

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Natural Sciences

First Advisor

Shipman, Steven

Keywords

Material Science, Quantum Dots, Solar Energy

Area of Concentration

Chemistry

Abstract

The demand for energy is continually rising; however, current energy usage is not sustainable. Solar energy is a viable alternative to fossil fuels if technologies that can efficiently and effectively harvest and store solar energy are developed. Current technologies used to harvest solar energy are effective but not efficient and research to develop both effective and efficient methods is ongoing. In this thesis, a solar cell sensitized with manganese-doped (cadmium sulfide)zinc sulfide (core)shell quantum dots, (CdS)Mn:ZnS QDs, is constructed. The (CdS)Mn:ZnS QDs generate high energy electrons via two consecutive exciton energy transfers to the manganese atom. The high energy electron should inject into the solar cell circuit very rapidly and increase the efficiency of the cell. It was found, however, that the (CdS)Mn:ZnS QD sensitized cell was less efficient than a typical sensitized solar cell. The open circuit voltage of the QD sensitized cell was 30 mV while the open circuit voltage of the typical cell was 60 mV. Additionally, the fill factor of the QD sensitized cell was 0.26 while the fill factor of the typical sensitized solar cell was 0.31.

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