Effect of Textured Glasses on Conversion Efficiency in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Abstract

In this paper, three types of optical textured glass substrates were prepared at the glass/transparent conductive oxide interface using polydimethylsiloxane nanoimprint lithography to increase the conversion efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). There were three types of textures: nanotexture, microtexture, and micro/nano double texture. In terms of optical characteristics, it was confirmed that the reflectance of all of the textured glass substrates was lower than that of flat glass in the mean value of the 400–800 nm wavelength band. Further, the diffuse transmittance was higher than that of flat glass for all of the textured glass substrates, and the D-Tx was particularly high. DSSCs were fabricated using N749 and N719 dyes; their size was 6 mm2. The conversion efficiencies of the N749 DSSCs were improved by 11% for the N-Tx (η of 2.41%) and 10% for the D-Tx (η of 2.38%) compared with flat glass (η of 2.17%) DSSCs. On the other hand, the M-Tx did not improve it. The conversion efficiencies of the N719 DSSCs with textured glass substrates were improved by 7.5% for the M-Tx (η of 2.74%), 18% for the N-Tx (η of 3.01%), and 26% for the D-Tx (η of 3.22%) compared with flat glass (η of 2.55%) DSSCs.

The effects of periodic textured substrate to control diffusion angle on the conversion efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells

“…The Prd-Tx was imprinted onto a 20 mm × 20 mm × 0.4 mm Borosilicate glass (Eagle XG, Corning) substrate using the PDMS replica mold. The process also mirrored the previous study, 4,5) except for the spin-coating speed. While the prior study used a spin speed of 6000 rpm, this study employed a speed of 3000 rpm.…”

“…A polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) replica mold was created from the Si master mold, replicating the procedure from the previous study. 4,5) The specific parameters of PDMS replica mold fabrication are shown in Table II.…”

“…We employed the Prd-Tx fabrication process for DSSCs as described in detail in the previous paper. 4,5) This process includes several key steps. On the SiO 2 -based Prd-Tx substrate, a transparent FTO electrode was deposited by SPD method.…”

“…3) Among these, dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have garnered attention for their unique mechanism of converting incident light into electricity using a photocatalyst, typically titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ). [4][5][6][7][8] The sensitization of TiO 2 with dyes narrows its bandgap (TiO 2 's original bandgap: 3.2 eV, which can be irradiated by light with a wavelength of 390 nm or less 9) ), enabling the conversion of light absorbed by the dye into electricity. 7) The schematic structure of DSSCs is depicted in Fig.…”

“…In our previous research, 4,5) we implemented micro-nanosized random dimple textures made of SiO 2 in DSSCs by nanoimprinting lithography (NIL). These textures came in three types: micro-sized (μ-Tx), nano-sized (n-Tx), and a combination of both (W-Tx).…”