Colloids and Surfaces B: Biointerfaces 164 (2018) 255–261 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Colloids and Surfaces B: Biointerfaces j o ur nal ho me pa ge: www.elsevier.com/locate/colsurfb Effect of electron beam irradiation on chemically synthesized nanoflake-like CdS electrodes for photoelectrochemical applications S.K. Shinde a,∗ , D.-Y. Kim a,∗ , D.S. Lee b , G.S. Ghodake a , A.N. Kadam c , A.V. Fulari d , Mohsin Nawaz b , Asif Shahzad b , M.C. Rath e , V.J. Fulari f,∗ a Department of Biological and Environmental Science, College of Life Science and Biotechnology, Dongguk University, 32 Dongguk-ro, Biomedical Campus, Ilsandong-gu, Siksa-dong, 10326, Goyang-si, Gyenggi-do, Republic of Korea b Department of Environmental Engineering, Kyungpook National University, 80 Daehak-ro, Buk-gu, Daegu, 41566, Republic of Korea c Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Gachon University, 1342 Seongnamdaero, Seongnam-si, Republic of Korea d Department of Physics, Osmania University, Hyderabad, India e Radiation and Photochemistry Division, BARC, Mumbai, 400 085, India f Holography and Materials Research Laboratory, Department of Physics, Shivaji University, Kolhapur, 416004, Maharashtra, India a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 3 June 2017 Received in revised form 10 January 2018 Accepted 20 January 2018 Keywords: Chemical bath deposition Nanostructure Photoelectrochemical cell Electron beam irradiation a b s t r a c t In this paper, we chemically synthesized interconnected nanoflake-like CdS thin films for photoelec- trochemical solar cell applications and subsequently irradiated them with electron beam irradiation at various doses of irradiation. The as-synthesized and irradiated samples were characterized by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), high-resolution transmis- sion electron microscopy (HR-TEM), and electrochemical measurements. XRD and XPS results confirmed the formation of CdS with a hexagonal crystal structure. FE-SEM and HR-TEM studies confirmed the pho- toelectrochemical performance, which was dependent on the surface morphology. The calculated values for efficiency demonstrated an outstanding photoelectrochemical performance with a fill factor of 0.38 and efficiency of 3.06% at 30 kGy. The high photoelectrochemical performance may be due to the inter- connected nanoflake-like nanostructure and higher active surface area of the CdS samples. These results show that the electron beam irradiation is capable as an electrode for photoelectrochemical solar cells. © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction In recent year, the availability of different options for energy conversion in solar cells has become a very important concept in the energy conversion and energy storage field due to it’s the source of sun lights are available on the earth [1–6]. Solar energy is very important for combating environmental pollution because it is low cost, easily available, and does not contribute to environmental pol- lution [1–9]. Various semiconductor materials are used for solar cell applications. Among these, CdS is a promising semiconductor material for solar cells [1,2] because it is a direct band gap semi- conductor material with high absorption compared to other metal chalcogenide semiconductors, in addition to its ease of preparation, and high stability [3]. CdS is binary materials in II–VI compounds and have been stud- ied extensively for solar cell applications. CdS has been prepared ∗ Corresponding authors. E-mail addresses: sbpkim@dongguk.edu (D.-Y. Kim), vijayfulari@gmail.com (V.J. Fulari). using several techniques such as successive ionic layer adsorp- tion and reaction [7], pulsed laser deposition [8], hydrothermal [9], gas/liquid interface [10], electrodeposition [11], sonication- assisted sequential chemical bath deposition (S-CBD) [12], thermal evaporation [13], and chemical bath deposition [14]. Among these different techniques available for the preparation of CdS thin films, chemical bath deposition has gained significance recently, as it is a simple and economically practical technique and is a technique in which deposition takes place under standard conditions such as room temperature [12,14,15]. To the best of the author’s knowledge, there are no any reports on the effect of electron beam irradiation of CdS thin films for solar cell applications. A literature survey showed that various concepts have been used to improve solar cell performance, such as doping [16], annealing [17], molar ratio [18], CdS/rGO [19], composition [20], composites [21], and decoration [22]. Electron beam irradiation is superior to the other techniques due to the low irradiation time, and no need for different instruments for the experiments. Ghosh et al. [17] synthesized In:CdS thin films by vacuum evaporation and studied the effects of different temper- atures in atmospheric air. The authors reported that no noticeable https://doi.org/10.1016/j.colsurfb.2018.01.036 0927-7765/© 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.