Metal-free organic dyes for TiO2 and ZnO dye-sensitized solar cells

Year: 2016

Authors: Selopal GS., Wu HP., Lu JF., Chang YC., Wang MK., Vomiero A., Concina I., Diau EWG.

Autors Affiliation: Univ Brescia, Dept Informat Engn, SENSOR Lab, I-25133 Brescia, Italy;‎ CNR, INO SENSOR Lab, I-25123 Brescia, Italy; Natl Chiao Tung Univ, Dept Appl Chem, Hsinchu 30010, Taiwan;‎ Natl Chiao Tung Univ, Inst Mol Sci, Hsinchu 30010, Taiwan;‎ Huazhong Univ Sci & Technol, Sch Opt & Elect Informat, Wuhan Natl Lab Optoelect, Michael Gratzel Ctr Mesoscop Solar Cells, Wuhan 430074, Peoples R China;‎ Lulea Univ Technol, S-97198 Lulea, Sweden

Abstract: We report the synthesis and characterization of new metal-free organic dyes (namely B18, BTD-R, and CPTD-R) which designed with D-p-A concept to extending the light absorption region by strong conjugation group of p-linker part and applied as light harvester in dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). We compared the photovoltaic performance of these dyes in two different photoanodes: a standard TiO2 mesoporous photoanode and a ZnO photoanode composed of hierarchically assembled nanostructures. The results demonstrated that B18 dye has better photovoltaic properties compared to other two dyes (BTD-R and CPTD-R) and each dye has higher current density (J(sc)) when applied to hierarchical ZnO nanocrystallites than the standard TiO2 mesoporous film. Transient photocurrent and photovoltage decay measurements (TCD/TVD) were applied to systematically study the charge transport and recombination kinetics in these devices, showing the electron life time (T-R) of B18 dye in ZnO and TiO2 based DSSCs is higher than CPTD-R and BTD-R based DSSCs, which is consistent with the photovoltaic performances. The conversion efficiency in ZnO based DSSCs can be further boosted by 35%, when a compact ZnO blocking layer (BL) is applied to inhibit electron back reaction.

Journal/Review: SCIENTIFIC REPORTS

Volume: 6      Pages from: 18756-1  to: 18756-12

KeyWords: INTENSITY-MODULATED PHOTOVOLTAGE; ZINC-OXIDE NANOSHEET; HIGH-EFFICIENCY; CHARGE-TRANSPORT; CONVERSION; FILMS; NANOCRYSTALLITES; RECOMBINATION; ELECTROLYTES; PHOTOANODES
DOI: 10.1038/srep18756

Citations: 63
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