Kozytskiy A. Photochemical formation and photoelectrochemical properties of sulfide/oxide semiconductor nanocomposites based on ZnO and TiO2

New photochemical methods for formation of semiconductor components of photoelectrochemical solar cells - sensitive to visible light photoanodes (ZnO/CdS, TiO2/CdS, TiO2/Sb2S3) and counter electrodes, electrochemically-active with respect to the sulfide/polysulfide redox couple (ZnO/CuxS, TiO2/CuxS), characterized by significantly higher photoelectrochemical (photoanodes) and electrocatalytic (counter electrodes) activity than similar heterostructures formed by other methods were developed. Photocatalytic method was used for the formation of the ITO/ZnO/CdS photoanodes and it was showed that such electrodes are characterized by twice bigger photoelectrochemical activity than those obtained by the SILAR method. The main reasons for this effect are the best conditions for the spatial separation of photogenerated charges at the ZnO-CdS interface, which is formed during the photocatalytic synthesis. Photocatalytic methods were used for the formation of the counter electrodes based on the composites TiO2/CuxS and ZnO/CuxS for photovoltaic sulfide/polysulfide-containing systems. Photochemical approach was used for formation of photoelectrochemically-active TiO2/Sb2S3 composites for the first time. Using the ability of zinc oxide to easy transformation into insoluble chalcogenides, in particular ZnSe, CuxS and CuSe, the number of sensitive to visible light photoanodes and counter electrodes were obtained.