This website uses cookies to give you the best user experience. If you continue
without changing your settings we'll assume you are happy to receive all RSC cookies.
You can change your cookie settings by navigating to our Privacy and Cookies page and following the instructions. These instructions
are also obtainable from the privacy link at the bottom of any RSC page.
A journal linking all aspects of the chemical, physical and biotechnological sciences relating to energy conversion and storage, alternative fuel technologies and environmental science.
Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) differ from conventional solar cells in that they rely on a large area nanoparticle network to achieve sufficient absorption of sunlight. Although highly successful to date, this approach limits the opportunities to further increase DSSC power efficiency because it necessarily restricts the choice of redox shuttles to those compatible with the long electron transit times and ample recombination opportunities inherent to the nanoparticle-based architecture. Here, we use a resonantly coupled cavity scheme to demonstrate planar, thin-film DSSCs with a polarized, monochromatic incident photon to current efficiency of 17% from a single monolayer of a conventional Ru-dye. Upon illumination on resonance we observe open-circuit voltages that reach 1 V and thereby approach the theoretical limit for open-circuit voltage set by the dye and redox shuttle energy levels. The results supply new insight into processes presently limiting DSSCs and point to novel strategies to overcome these losses.
Fetching data from CrossRef. This may take some time to load.
This may take some time to load.
Energy & Environmental Science
- Information Point