Light scattering is a method that has been employed in dye-sensitized solar cells for optical absorption enhancement. In conventional dye-sensitized solar cells, large TiO(2) particles with sizes comparable to the wavelength of visible light are used as scatterers by either being mixed into the nanocrystalline film to generate light scattering or forming a scattering layer on the top of the nan...

New kinds of hydroquinone derivatives were synthesized and along with a azo dye applied as additives in the iodide/iodine redox electrolyte for dye-sensitized solar cells and their effect on the short-circuit photocurrent of dye sensitized solar cells was investigated. Addition of 0.05 M a hydroquinone derivative in the electrolyte comprising 0.5 M 1-methyl-3-propylimidazolium iodide (MPII) and...

The hole transporting medium in solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells can be utilized to harvest sunlight. Herein we demonstrate that a triphenylamine-based dye, used as hole-transporting medium, contributes to the photocurrent in a squaraine-sensitized solid-state dye-sensitized solar cell. Steady-state photoluminescence measurements have been used to distinguish between electron transfer and...

Various tandem cell configurations have been reported for highly efficient and spontaneous hydrogen production from photoelectrochemical solar water splitting. However, there is a contradiction between two main requirements of a front photoelectrode in a tandem cell configuration, namely, high transparency and high photocurrent density. Here we demonstrate a simple yet highly effective method t...

Highly ordered, and conductive inverse opal arrays were made with silica and subsequently coated with tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) via atomic layer deposition (ALD). We demonstrate the utility of the resulting mesostructured electrodes by further coating them with nickel oxide via ALD. The NiO-coated arrays are capable of efficiently electrochemically evolving oxygen from water. These modular, ...

In the present study, two new organic dyes based on indigo were prepared and used as sensitizers in dye-sensitized solar cells. To this end, indoxyl was utilized as the electron donor and cyanoacrylic acid as the electron acceptor anchoring groups. These dyes together with their corresponding intermediates were purified and characterized by FTIR, 1HNMR, 13CNMR, elemental analysis and UV-Visible...

A major loss mechanism in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) is recombination at the TiO(2)/electrolyte interface. Here we report a method to reduce greatly this loss mechanism. We deposit insulating and transparent silica (SiO(2)) onto the open areas of a nanoparticulate TiO(2) surface while avoiding any deposition of SiO(2) over or under the organic dye molecules. The SiO(2) coating covers the...

Conventional dye-sensitized solar cells have excellent charge collection efficiencies, high open-circuit voltages and good fill factors. However, dye-sensitized solar cells do not completely absorb all of the photons from the visible and near-infrared domain and consequently have lower short-circuit photocurrent densities than inorganic photovoltaic devices. Here, we present a new design where ...