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Transparent conductive oxide‐less back contact dye‐sensitized solar cells using cobalt electrolyte
Author(s) -
Molla Md. Zaman,
Mizukoshi Norihiro,
Furukawa Hiroaki,
Ogomi Yuhei,
Pandey Shyam S.,
Ma Tingli,
Hayase Shuzi
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
progress in photovoltaics: research and applications
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.286
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1099-159X
pISSN - 1062-7995
DOI - 10.1002/pip.2526
Subject(s) - dye sensitized solar cell , nanoporous , electrolyte , photocurrent , materials science , cobalt , energy conversion efficiency , oxide , optoelectronics , transparent conducting film , chemical engineering , electrical conductor , electrode , nanotechnology , chemistry , composite material , metallurgy , engineering
Transparent conductive oxide‐less (TCO‐less) dye‐sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have been fabricated and characterized using nanoporous TiO 2 ‐coated stainless steel metal mesh as flexible photoanode and cobalt bipyridyl complex (Co(bpy))‐based one electron redox shuttle electrolyte. Attempts have been made towards enhancing the efficiency of TCO‐less DSSCs to match with their TCO‐based DSSC counterparts. It has been found that surface protection of metal mesh is highly required for enhancing the efficiency of TCO‐less DSSCs specially using cobalt electrolytes as confirmed by dark current–voltage characteristics. Photocurrent action spectra clearly reveal that TCO‐based DSSCs using (Co(bpy)) electrolyte exhibits photon harvesting (incident photon to current conversion efficiency (IPCE) 52%) in the 370–450 nm wavelength region as compared to photon harvesting at peak absorption of the dye (IPCE 56% at 550 nm), which is almost the same (IPCE 47%) in the 400–610 nm wavelength region for TCO‐less DSSCs. Under similar experimental conditions, replacing indoline dye D‐205 to porphyrin‐based dye YD2‐o‐C8 led to the enhancement in the photoconversion efficiency from 3.33% to 4.84% under simulated solar irradiation. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.