The Cell Performances of DSSCs with ZnO Nanorod Electrodes

Abstract

To date, dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) based on TiO2 nanoparticles have been widely investigated due to their high conversion efficiency. However, constructing TiO2 into a structure of nanorods with a high aspect ratio is difficult to be achieved. On the other hand, nanorod/nanowire arrays may provide some advantages, such as an efficient pathway for electron transport and a larger surface area for dye absorption. ZnO is one kind of metal oxides that can be formed into nanorods easily with various methods. Here, we reported our works on the preparation of ZnO nanorods and investigate its DSSC performance. We found that the cell performance was very affected by the diameter of the nanorods, which may then indicate that charge transfer and charge extraction processes are more effective in the cell with a smaller nanorod diameter.