Factors leading to low cost dye sensitised solar cells with ‘go faster’ stripes

Probing Energy-Level Alignment in Molecular Multilayers by Frequency-Modulation Electrostatic Force Microscopy under Tapping-Mode-Combined Fowler–Nordheim Tunneling Spectroscopy

“…The energy level of the LUMO of N719 was reported to be −3.83 eV from the vacuum level by photoacoustic calorimetry (PAC), 49 which is in good agreement with that by DFT calculation (−3.85 eV). Considering the surface potential of 0.2 eV observed from the EFM measurement, the corrected LUMO energy level (−4.05 eV) is in good agreement with the experimental value (−4.1 eV).…”

“…Two kinds of self-assembled monolayer (SAM) on the Au(111) surface were obtained by immersion in ethanol solutions (1 mM) of 6-amino-1-hexanethiol (6-AHT; Dojindo, Japan) and 11amino-1-undecanethiol (11-AUT; Dojindo, Japan), respectively, at 40 °C for 2 h. The SAM samples were then soaked in a 1 mM N719 (Sigma-Aldrich, Japan) solution in ethanol for 24 h to accumulate the N719 layer. 49 Finally, the samples were rinsed with ethanol and dried with nitrogen gas. The two TBA counter ions in N-719 ([RuL 2 (NCS) 2 ]•2TBA) were replaced by protons during the above procedures resulting in protonated form, N3.…”

Facile Solution Dropping Method: A Green Process for Dyeing TiO2 Electrodes of Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells with Enhanced Power Conversion Efficiency

“…28 In other cases, chemicals used in the dyeing process have been significantly reduced by operation with the assistance from extra equipment or apparatus, which often incurs other problems, for example, an ultrafast dyeing process with the usage of an injection syringe to distribute dye solution onto a TiO 2 surface, of which the injection syringe is stationary with a fixed-point on the TiO 2 electrode. 25,26,29 In this improved dyeing process, the dye solution needs to diffuse through the whole surface area of the nanoporous TiO 2 structure. This injection method is able to drastically reduce the dyeing time to ∼2 min.…”

Editorial: Photovoltaic Science and Technology (PVSAT9)

“…This explores an application for graphene nanoparticles in high volume production of DSC solar cells. The paper by Holliman et al 3 continues with the theme of materials and materials processing for high volume production of DSC with a new technique that reduces the time for incorporation of the dye into the nanoporous titania from many hours down to a few minutes, with the added advantage of being able to introduce different dyes simultaneously. Isherwood et al 4 present results on a new and potentially low cost way of depositing the cupric oxide phase (CuO) for a PV absorber.…”