Facile Hydrothermal Synthesis of Tellurium Nanostructures for Solar Cells

Tellurium (Te) nanostructures have been successfully synthesized via a simple hydrothermal methodfrom the reaction of a TeCl4 aqueous solution with thioglycolic acid (TGA) as a reductant. TGA can be easily oxidized to the corresponding disulfide [SCH2CO2H]2, which in turn can reduce TeCl4 to Te. The obtained Te was characterized by XRD, SEM, EDS, and DRS. The effect of reducing agent on morphology and size of the products were also studied. Additionally, Te thin film was deposited on the FTO-TiO2 by Drblading then employed to solar cell application and measured open circuit voltage (Voc), short circuit current (Isc), and fill factor (FF) were determined as well. The studies showed that particle morphology and sizes play crucial role on solar cell efficiencies.