In situ hydrothermal growth of hierarchical ZnO nanourchin for high-efficiency dye-sensitized solar cells

The ability to fabricate 1D nanotexture photoanodes with a high degree of multifunctionalities by structural and morphological control still represents a vital issue towards boosting the ultimate photoelectric conversion efficiency of DSCs. In this work, we report an innovative experimental design f...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of power sources 2014-05, Vol.254, p.153-160
Main Authors: Zheng, Yan-Zhen, Ding, Haiyang, Liu, Yu, Tao, Xia, Cao, Guozhong, Chen, Jian-Feng
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Applied sciences
Conversion
Differential scanning calorimetry
Dye-sensitized solar cell
Dyes
Energy
Exact sciences and technology
In situ growth
Nanocrystals
Nanostructure
Nanourchin
Natural energy
Photovoltaic cells
Photovoltaic conversion
Solar cells
Solar cells. Photoelectrochemical cells
Solar energy
Zinc oxide
Zinc oxide nanocrystalline aggregate
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Summary:The ability to fabricate 1D nanotexture photoanodes with a high degree of multifunctionalities by structural and morphological control still represents a vital issue towards boosting the ultimate photoelectric conversion efficiency of DSCs. In this work, we report an innovative experimental design for in-situ hydrothermal growth of hierarchical ZnO nanourchin on multi-scale ZnO (i.e. nanocrystalline aggregate) seeded layer as photoanode for use in high-efficiency DSCs. It is found that this fascinating 1D nanoarchitecture can simultaneously achieve three favorable characteristics which are generally incompatible with one another in a mono-layer photoelectrode: large dye adsorption amount, strong light scattering and direct electron transport networks, hence leading to a significant improvement of solar cell performance ranging from light harvesting capacity to electron collection efficiency. An enhanced conversion efficiency of 6.40% for hierarchical ZnO nanourchin-based DSC is achieved, with a significant efficiency improvement of 31.1% in comparison with ZnO nanocrystalline aggregate-based DSC, and also far higher than reported efficiency of pure 1D ZnO-based cell. [Display omitted] •Hierarchical 1D ZnO nanoarchitecture is grown on a multi-scale ZnO seeded layer.•Light harvesting and charge transport are simultaneously maximized.•A superb photo-to-current conversion efficiency of 6.40% is obtained.
ISSN:0378-7753
1873-2755
DOI:10.1016/j.jpowsour.2013.12.123