A p-type semiconductor photoelectrode in dye sensitized solar cells (DSCs) has a large optical band gap and high ionization potential but suffers from its intrinsically low hole transfer rate, thus resulting in much poorer performance than n-DSCs. Nickel oxide (NiO)/graphene composite is synthesized to offer a larger surface area and higher conductivity than the pristine NiO film. The novel composite as a photoelectrode in p-DSCs demonstrates increment of both short-circuit photocurrent and open-circuit photovoltage, leading to 2 times increase of power conversion efficiency. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and open-circuit voltage decay measurements indicate that the charge recombination of the composite-based p-DSCs is significantly suppressed due to enhanced hole transport by the presence of graphene, thus achieving an efficient electron–hole pair charge separation and collection in the composite film electrode for performance-improved NiO-based devices. The proposed mechanism provides physical insight into the enhancement process in p-DSCs.

No abstract

Coexistence of negative differential resistance (NDR) and resistive switching (RS) memory is observed using a Ag|TiOx|F‐doped‐SnO2 memory cell at room temperature. Unlike other reports, the coexistence of NDR and RS strongly depends on the relative humidity levels at room temperature. The NDR disappears when the cells are placed in a dry air ambient (H2O < 5 ppm) or in vacuum, but the coexistence emerges and gradually becomes obvious after the cells are exposed to ambient air with relative humidity of 35%, and then becomes dramatically enhanced as the relative humidity becomes higher. Due to the excellent stability and reversibility of the coexistence of NDR and RS, a multilevel RS memory is developed at room temperature. Hydroxide ion (OH−) is induced by gas‐phase water‐molecule splitting on the surface and interface of the memory cell. The OH− interacts with oxygen vacancies and transports in the bulk of memory cell to facilitate the migration of Ag ions and oxygen vacancies along grain boundaries. These processes are responsible for the moisture‐modulated and room‐temperature coexistence. This work demonstrates moisture‐modulated coexistence of NDR and RS for the first time and gives an insight into the influence of water molecules on transition‐metal‐oxide‐based RS memory systems.

Herein graphene quantum dot (GQD), a graphene material with lateral dimension less than 100 nm, is explored to dope PPy on F-doped tin oxide glass as an efficient counter electrode for high-performance dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The GQDs-doped PPy film has a porous structure in comparison to the densely structured plain PPy, and displays higher catalytic current density and lower charge transfer resistance than the latter toward I3(-)/I(-) redox reaction. The highest power conversion efficiency (5.27%) for DSSCs is achieved with PPy doped with10% GQDs, which is comparable to that of Pt counter electrode-based DSSCs. This work provides an inexpensive alternative to replace platinum for DSSCs.

Poly(3,/polystyrene sulfonate (PE-DOT:PSS) plays an important role in inverted planar perovskite solar cells (IPPSCs) as an efficient hole extraction and transfer layer (HTL). The IPPSCs based on PEDOT:PSS normally display inferior performance with a reduced open-circuit voltage. To address this problem, here sodium citrate-doped PEDOT:PSS is adopted as an effective HTL for improving the performance of IPPSCs. Sodium citrate-doped PEDOT:PSS HTL improves the conversion efficiency of IPPSCs from 15.05% of reference cells to 18.39%. The large increase of the open-circuit voltage (V OC ) from 1.057 to 1.134 V is the main source for this performance enhancement. With the help of characterization analysis of ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, etc., the higher work function of the doped PEDOT:PSS film and the uniform crystallinity of the perovskite film on it are disclosed as the reasons for the increased V OC and the consequent performance enhancement.