Two main factors which limit the power conversion efficiency of solar cells are light absorption and recombination processes. In photovoltaic (PV) devices, low energy photons cannot be absorbed and excite electrons from valance band to conduction band, hence do not contribute to the current. On the other hand, high energy photons cannot be efficiently used due to a poor match to the energy gap. Existence of charge recombination in PV devices causes the low conversion performance, which is indicated by the low open-circuit voltage (VOC). Using a blocking layer in system could effectively reduce the recombination of charge carriers. In this study, we simulated a solar cell with ITO/ZnO/P3HT&PCBM/Ag structure. To prevent the charge recombination, a ZnS QD layer was used which acts as a light absorbing and a recombination blocking layer in the ITO/ZnO film/ZnS QD/P3HT&PCBM/Ag structure. The simulated J–V characteristics of solar cells showed a close match with the experimental results. Simulate data showed an increase of conversion efficiency in ZnS QDSSC from 1.71 to 3.10%, which is relatively 81.28% increase.
