In the standard solar cell technologies such as crystalline silicon and cadmium telluride, increments of temperature in the cell produce large variations in the energy conversion efficiency, which decreases at a constant rate. In dye solar cells the efficiency remains roughly constant with a maximum at around 30-40 °C and further decays above this temperature. In this work, the origin of this c...

162 nature photonics | VOL 6 | MARCH 2012 | www.nature.com/naturephotonics Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) are attractive because they are made from cheap materials that do not need to be highly purified and can be printed at low cost1. DSCs are unique compared with almost all other kinds of solar cells in that electron transport, light absorption and hole transport are each handled by differ...

We studied the influence of the hydrophobic hydrocarbon chain length of amphiphilic ruthenium dyes on the device performance in solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells. We found that the dyes with longer hydrocarbon chains gave higher efficiency values when used as a sensitizer in solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells. With increasing chain length, we observed higher currents and open-circuit v...

We report a solid-state-dye-sensitized solar cell with an efficiency of 4% over the standard air mass 1.5 spectrum s100 mW/cm2d. This was made possible by using an amphiphilic dye with hydrophobic spacers. We dense layer on the TiO2 surface w as anchors and with its hydrophobic isolating chains as blocking layer between hole conductor and TiO2. In addition we studied the dependence of the thick...

One-dimensional titania nanostructures can serve as a support for light absorbing molecules and result in an improvement in the short circuit current (Jsc) and open circuit voltage (Voc) as a nanostructured and high-surface-area material in dye-sensitized solar cells. Here, self-assembled amyloid-like peptide nanofibers were exploited as an organic template for the growth of one-dimensional tit...

The potential of room-temperature molten salts (ionic liquids) as solvents for electrolytes for dye-sensitized solar cells has been investigated during the last decade. The non-volatility, good solvent properties and high electrochemical stability of ionic liquids make them attractive solvents in contrast to volatile organic solvents. Despite this, the relatively high viscosity of ionic liquids...

We have successfully introduced green phosphors LaPO4:Ce, Tb (G4) or (Mg, Zn)Al11O19:Eu (G2) into TiO2 photoelectrode of dye-sensitized solar cells. The conversion efficiency of the G4-doped device was enhanced by 30% compared with the pristine TiO2 photoelectrode. The green phosphor doped at 5-wt.% ratio contributed to the reduction of resistances of the surface and interface of the photoelect...

Large-sized titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanotube arrays with an outer diameter of approximately 500 nm have been successfully synthesized by potentiostatic anodization at 180 V in a used electrolyte with the addition of 1.5 M lactic acid. It is found that the synthesized large-diameter TiO2 nanotube array shows a superior light scattering ability, which can be used as a light scattering layer to si...