The Photovoltaic Performance of Doped-CuI Hole Conductors for Solid State Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Abstract

The iodine doped copper (I) iodide (I2: CuI) at different weight of iodine dopant have been prepared to investigate its thin films properties and photovoltaic performance. A novel method of mist atomization technique has been used for the deposition of CuI materials. The structural and electrical properties of CuI thin films deposited on the glass substrates were studied. The thin films morphology examined by FESEM shows a variation of crystal size and structure. Brick-like structure with smooth faces and sharp edges were seen for the doped thin films. The CuI thin films at 30 mg of iodine doping shows the highest resistivity of 4.56 × 101 Ω cm which caused by the surface traps create by iodine doping. The photovoltaic performance of ss-DSSC on the effect of variation iodine doping was investigated. The ss-DSSC fabricated with undoped CuI materials shows the highest efficiency of 1.05% while the 40 mg I2 content shows the lowest conversion efficiency of 0.45%. The crystals size of CuI and its degree of crystallization are greatly contributed to the high filling fraction of the porous TiO2 layer and hence the cells performance.