Narrow with tunable optical band gap of CdS based core shell nanoparticles: Applications in pollutant degradation and solar cells

In this work, sulfide-based core-shell heterostructures were successfully synthesized by chemical method. Structural, morphological, chemical composition, optical, and thermal properties of core-shell materials were investigated using different analytical techniques. The thickness of the shell can be tuned by controlling the concentration of respective shell precursors. TEM and HR-TEM analyses show that the particles are spherical in shape with particle size in the range 3-5 nm. Optical studies reveal that the core-shell materials possess strong visible-light photocatalytic activity. Among the four photocatalysts, CdS/SnS showed the best activity towards photo-degradation of methylene blue (MB). Addition of shells to the CdS core has a clear impact on the performance of solar cells. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.