Spherical growth of nanostructures ZnO based optical sensing and photovoltaic application

Abstract

The present paper reports deviation in the intensity of light transmitted through the film of ZnO spherical nanostructure (SNSs) with the exposure of humidity at room temperature. For this purpose, the precursor of ZnO SNSs was prepared and used for coating thin film on borosilicate substrates. The efficient dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are promisingly low-cost molecular solar cell devices. ZnO SNSs are promising materials used to use to create photoanodes for DSSCs. The film was then investigated using SEM, HR-TEM, XRD and UV–visible transmittance techniques. Further, it was employed as transmission based optical humidity sensor, the maximum sensitivity of which was found a ∼ 1.81 μW/%RH with response and recovery time of 36 s and 124 s respectively. The sensor showed ∼97% reproducible results. The fabricated ZnO SPSs based DSSC shows a short circuit current density (Jsc) of 3 mA/cm2, open circuit voltage (Voc) of 0.62 V and efficiency (ɳ) of 1.3% at one sun condition.