Solar photovoltaic energy is a clean and renewable source of electricity that has been researched heavily over the past 30 years. However, cost, toxicity, and rarity of precursor elements still limit its widespread implementation. Antimony Sulfoiodide (SbSI) is a relatively unstudied ferroelectric with promising properties as a solar cell absorber.
In this work, the semiconductor SbSI was synthesized hydrothermally to produce crystals that were 650 microns long and 30 microns in diameter on average, as measured by scanning electron microscopy. These microrods were synthesized from a published procedure [1], but had variances in pH and seeding, where a decrease in pH increased crystal size. X-ray diffraction confirmed the phase purity. Diffuse reflectance measurements revealed an indirect band gap of 1.85 eV, which is near the optimal range for solar cells. These preliminary results demonstrate the suitable properties of SbSI as an easily synthesized solar cell absorber material.[1] Chen, G., Li, W., Yu, Y., & Yang, Q. (2015). Fast and low-temperature synthesis of one-dimensional (1D) single-crystalline SbSI microrod for high performance photodetector. RSC Adv., 5(28), 21859-21864. doi:10.1039/c5ra01180a
In this work, the semiconductor SbSI was synthesized hydrothermally to produce crystals that were 650 microns long and 30 microns in diameter on average, as measured by scanning electron microscopy. These microrods were synthesized from a published procedure [1], but had variances in pH and seeding, where a decrease in pH increased crystal size. X-ray diffraction confirmed the phase purity. Diffuse reflectance measurements revealed an indirect band gap of 1.85 eV, which is near the optimal range for solar cells. These preliminary results demonstrate the suitable properties of SbSI as an easily synthesized solar cell absorber material.[1] Chen, G., Li, W., Yu, Y., & Yang, Q. (2015). Fast and low-temperature synthesis of one-dimensional (1D) single-crystalline SbSI microrod for high performance photodetector. RSC Adv., 5(28), 21859-21864. doi:10.1039/c5ra01180a