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Enhanced Light Harvesting in Plasmonic Dye‐Sensitized Solar Cells by Using a Topologically Ordered Gold Light‐Trapping Layer
Author(s) -
Yang Nailiang,
Yuan Qi,
Zhai Jin,
Wei Tianxin,
Wang Dan,
Jiang Lei
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
chemsuschem
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.412
H-Index - 157
eISSN - 1864-564X
pISSN - 1864-5631
DOI - 10.1002/cssc.201200024
Subject(s) - photocurrent , plasmon , materials science , dye sensitized solar cell , optoelectronics , layer (electronics) , nanotechnology , trapping , energy conversion efficiency , electrode , irradiation , chemistry , physics , ecology , electrolyte , biology , nuclear physics
Dye‐sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are promising low‐cost, high‐efficiency devices with low environmental impact. One of the important methods to improve their efficiencies involves increasing the light‐harvesting efficiency. Earlier work has focused on varying the morphology of the photoanode. With such a hierarchical structured photoanode in hand, we modify herein the structure of the counter electrode to enhance the optical path length through the plasmonic and reflecttion effects. With the introduced topological gold layer, the photocurrent and efficiency are increased by 16 % and 18 %, respectively, due to the increased light collection. Besides, this effect is effective at both high and low levels of solar irradiation.