Synthesis and characterization of Ag nanowires: Improved performance in dye sensitized solar cells

Abstract

Summary Development of highly efficient dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) with good photovoltaic parameters is an active research area of current global interest. Recently, one dimensional nanomaterial, such as nanorods and nanotubes has replaced the nanoparticles used in DSSCs anode because of their ability to improve the electron transport leading to enhanced electron collection efficiency. In the present work, rapid synthesis of silver nanowires (AgNWs) was done. The XRD characterization was performed to confirm the formation and size of synthesized AgNWs. It was observed that FWHM of the diffraction peaks was increased with AgNWs concentration in TiO 2 . The synthesized TiO 2 AgNWs nanocomposite was used as the photo anode of Dye sensitized solar cell. The I – V characteristics of the solar cell were drawn using standard conditions. It was observed that TiO 2 AgNWs based solar cells have significantly increased photocurrent density resulting in improved conversion efficiency as compared to pure TiO 2 based DSSC.