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Conventional nanorod-based dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are fabricated by growing nanorods on top of a transparent conducting oxide (TCO, typically fluorine-doped tin oxide—FTO). The heterogeneous interface between the nanorod and TCO forms a source for carrier scattering. This work reports on a new DSSC architecture without a TCO layer. The TCO-less structure consists of ZnO nanorods grown on top of a ZnO film. The ZnO film replaced FTO as the TCO layer and the ZnO nanorods served as the photoanode. The ZnO nanorod/film structure was grown by two methods: (1) one-step chemical vapor deposition (CVD) (2) two-step chemical bath deposition (CBD). The thicknesses of the nanorods/film grown by CVD is more uniform than that by CBD. We demonstrate that the TCO-less DSSC structure can operate properly as solar cells. The new DSSCs yield the best short-current density of 3.96 mA/ and a power conversion efficiency of 0.73% under 85 mW/ of simulated solar illumination. The open-circuit voltage of 0.80 V is markedly higher than that from conventional ZnO DSSCs.

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