Rare earth ion doped phosphors for dye-sensitized solar cells applications

Abstract

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have attracted extensive attention as one of the promising alternatives to silicon solar cells. However, DSSCs have a maximum absorption in the visible light of solar spectrum, which confines their power conversion efficiency. Lots of research efforts have been focused on extending light absorption to enhance the conversion efficiency. Rare earth ion doped up/down conversion materials is an available approach to compensate for the non-absorbable wavelength region of DSSCs via converting ultraviolet and near-infrared radiation to visible emission. In addition to the light-harvesting enhancement, light-scattering effect and recombination loss can also be achieved in DSSCs by utilizing upconversion (UC) or downconversion (DC) materials. Moreover, the introduction of UC or DC facilitates to improve the stability of solar cells. In this review paper, the performance of dye-sensitized solar cells based on up or down conversion materials will be introduced.