Optical and Electrical Modeling of DSSC with Light Scattering Layer

Abstract

The dye-sensitized solar cell is one of the most promising solar cells as an alternative to conventional silicon-based solar cells. The advantages of DSSC compared to conventional silicon-based solar cells are the easy fabrication process and low cost. In general, DSSC consists of semiconductor materials and dye as a photoanode, a catalyst at the counter electrode, and an electrolyte. The problem is that the DSSC performance is not optimal in the light utilization process. One of the ways to improve DSSC performance is by increasing photon absorption. A method that can increase photon absorption on DSSC is by adding a light scattering layer (LSL) using TiO2 microparticles. The technique used in this study for the optical model is the scattering theory and numerical methods using the Finite Differential Time Domain (FDTD). The scattering intensity and incident photon intensity are used for the electron generation process. The result of electron generation is used to model electrically to obtain the value of the short circuit current density and the open-circuit voltage with the diffusion differential equation. DSSC with LSL has higher efficiency than DSSC without LSL. The results obtained from this study DSSC with LSL has an efficiency of 5.5%, Jsc 16 mA/cm2, and an open-circuit voltage of 0.6184 volts. DSSC without LSL has an efficiency of 4.9%, Jsc of 14.5 mA/cm2, and an open-circuit voltage of 0.6073 Volt.