Improvement in photovoltaic efficiency of solar cells with ZnO nanorods and electrophoretically-adsorbed dyes

Abstract

ZnO nanorods grown on the F-doped tin oxide glass by a chemical bath deposition were sensitized by the electrophoretic technique or the conventional soaking method, and the resulting electrodes were applied to photoanodes of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The DSSC with an electrophoretically-sensitized ZnO layer showed an increase in both the short-circuit current (Jsc ) and the open-circuit voltage (Voc ), resulting in a 220% enhancement of photovoltaic performance, when compared to that of the reference cell with a conventionally-sensitized ZnO layer. By applying the electrophoresis to dye adsorption, dye-loading amount was considerably increased, and thereby enhancing the light harvesting efficiency and reducing the interfacial charge recombination between photoinjected electrons and I3 −. This led to the enhancement in Jsc and Voc , compared to those of the reference cell.