Solar cell is one of the promising alternative green energy sources that can provide free electricity when sunlight is converted. The absorbent materials and their synthesis methods are subject of interest mainly due to solar panel installation cost despite of free electricity generated. The well-known silicon solar cells made, either amorphous or polycrystalline are good in conversion efficiency up to 17%, but their high cost make the researchers to look for alternate materials. Semiconducting materials in thin film form such as InP, SnO2 and ZnO are being studied as the alternative materials, but are not commercialised due to their poor conversion efficiency. Another group of semiconductor compounds known as transition metal chalcogenides (TMC) have been developed to be used as the absorbent materials. Consisting of transition metals and chalcogenides (S, Se and Te), they show promising solar absorbent properties such as semiconducting band gap, well adhesion to substrate and good conversion with better cost-effective. There are many TMC compounds synthesised, including copper indium selenide (CIS), ZnTe2, CdSe etc. Nickel, one of the transition metals synthesised with chalcogenides are referred as nickel chalcogenides. There are many possible combinations of nickel chalcogenides such as NiS2, NiSe, NiSe2 and Ni3Se2. The combination of nickel and telluride are the fewest being observed due to the nature of tellurium that is poorly-adhesive onto the substrate. Therefore, NiTe2 thin film is being electro-synthesised onto the indium tin oxide (ITO) coated glass substrates and their properties are studied. The additives are being used to improve the adhesion between the film and substrate. Cyclic voltammetry experiments have been done prior to electrodeposition in order to get the electrodeposition potential range where the observable reduction range is between-0.9-(-1.1) V. The electrodeposition is carried out using the potentials in the reduction region, producing the well-adherent, well-distributed and dark-coloured thin films.
Fabrication of thin film sensors by spin coating using sol-gel LaCrO3 Perovskite material modified with transition metals for sensing environmental pollutants, greenhouse gases and relative humidity
