ZnO-Nanorod Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells : New Structure without a Transparent Conducting Oxide Layer

الملخص EN

Conventional nanorod-based dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are fabricated by growing nanorods on top of a transparent conducting oxide (TCO, typically fluorine-doped tin oxide—FTO).

The heterogeneous interface between the nanorod and TCO forms a source for carrier scattering.

This work reports on a new DSSC architecture without a TCO layer.

The TCO-less structure consists of ZnO nanorods grown on top of a ZnO film.

The ZnO film replaced FTO as the TCO layer and the ZnO nanorods served as the photoanode.

The ZnO nanorod/film structure was grown by two methods: (1) one-step chemical vapor deposition (CVD) (2) two-step chemical bath deposition (CBD).

The thicknesses of the nanorods/film grown by CVD is more uniform than that by CBD.

We demonstrate that the TCO-less DSSC structure can operate properly as solar cells.

The new DSSCs yield the best short-current density of 3.96 mA/cm2 and a power conversion efficiency of 0.73% under 85 mW/cm2 of simulated solar illumination.

The open-circuit voltage of 0.80 V is markedly higher than that from conventional ZnO DSSCs.