Efficient and stable back-illuminated sub-module dye-sensitized solar cells by decorating SiO2 porous layer with TiO2 electrode

Kun-Mu Lee; Chia-Yuan Chen; Yi-Ting Tsai; Ling-Chuan Lin; Chun-Guey Wu

doi:10.1039/C3RA41687A

Efficient and stable back-illuminated sub-module dye-sensitized solar cells by decorating SiO₂ porous layer with TiO₂electrode

Kun-Mu Lee,*^ab Chia-Yuan Chen,^b Yi-Ting Tsai,^a Ling-Chuan Lin^a and Chun-Guey Wu*^bc

* Corresponding authors

^a Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, National Central University, Taoyuan 32001, Taiwan
E-mail: kmlee@ncu.edu.tw
Fax: +886-3-4227664
Tel: +886-3-4227151 ext.25373

^b Research Center for New Generation Photovoltaics, National Central University, Taoyuan 32001, Taiwan

^c Department of Chemistry, National Central University, Taoyuan 32001, Taiwan

Abstract

The present study focuses on enhancing the efficiency of back-illuminated dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) by incorporating a SiO₂ mesoporous layer on a TiO₂ electrode. The performance of the DSCs is investigated by incident photon conversion efficiency (IPCE) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). It is observed that the photocurrent increases when the TiO₂ electrode is coated with a SiO₂ layer, resulting in an increase in the incident light to the dye–TiO₂ electrode, especially in the wavelength range 400–600 nm. The TiO₂ electrode coated with 500 nm diameter mesoporous SiO₂ exhibits better device performance than that using 100 nm diameter SiO₂ particles. With this modification, the Ti foil-based flexible sub-module DSC (5 cm × 10 cm) shows a high conversion efficiency of 7.13% under illumination of 100 mW cm⁻² (AM 1.5), as well as good stability.

Article information

https://doi.org/10.1039/C3RA41687A

Article type

Paper

Submitted

08 Apr 2013

Accepted

23 Apr 2013

First published

24 Apr 2013

Download Citation

RSC Adv., 2013,3, 9994-10000

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Efficient and stable back-illuminated sub-module dye-sensitized solar cells by decorating SiO₂ porous layer with TiO₂ electrode

K. Lee, C. Chen, Y. Tsai, L. Lin and C. Wu, RSC Adv., 2013, 3, 9994 DOI: 10.1039/C3RA41687A

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