Transparent conductive oxide-less back contact dye-sensitized solar cells using flat titanium sheet with microholes for photoanode fabrication

Abstract

A flat titanium sheet with microholes (FTS-MH) has been utilized to fabricate transparent conductive oxide-less dye-sensitized solar cells (TCO-less DSSCs) in back contact device architecture. Utilization of FTS-MH to fabricate a TCO-less photoanode offers several advantages in terms of simplicity and ease of fabrication as compared with the TCO-less DSSCs structure reported previously. Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) surface treatments on FTS-MH have shown important factors to enhance the photoanode properties. H2O2 surface treatment is able to change the surface morphology of FTS-MH, and the created anatase titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanostructures increase the surface contact between the FTS-MH and the coated mesoporous TiO2. Electrochemical impedance investigations reveled that improvements of the FTS-MH/TiO2 and TiO2/dye/electrolyte interface led to hampered charge recombination resulting in enhancement of both short-circuit current density and open-circuit voltage, respectively. Even after removal of both TCO layers, our complete TCO-less DSSCs exhibited a power conversion efficiency of 7.25% under simulated solar irradiation.