Electrochemically Guided Photovoltaic Devices: A Photocurrent Study of the Charge Transfer Directionality between CdTe and CdSe Nanoparticles

This work reports on the energy level alignment and charge transfer in organized assemblies of CdTe and CdSe nanoparticles (NPs), for both electrochemical systems and in solid-state photovoltaic devices. This work shows how control over the energy level alignment, by manipulation of the size and surface ligands of the CdTe and CdSe NPs, can be combined with control over the NPs spatial arrangement, either by sequential self-assembly onto a Au working electrode of an electrochemical cell or spin-coating onto an ITO substrate of a photovoltaic device, to facilitate photoinduced charge separation (photocurrent). By properly arranging the spatial and energetic hierarchy of the assemblies, the charge transfer direction and its efficiency can be optimized.