Absorption Induced by Mn Doping of ZnS for Improved Sensitized Quantum-Dot Solar Cells

Designers of next-generation photovoltaics look to employ abundant, environmentally benign materials, and currently zinc selenide is of interest. Unfortunately, the wide band gap of ZnS quantum dots (QDs) limits their application in solar cells. The authors show that introducing intermediate energy levels in these QDs via doping with manganese is effective in expanding their absorption window into the visible region, and thus improving device performance.