New generation solar cells: concepts, trends and perspectives

Abstract

Organic, dye-sensitized and perovskite solar cell technologies have triggered widespread interest in recent years due to their very promising potential towards a high solar electricity future. A number of important milestones have marked the roadmap of each sector on the way to today's outstanding performances, but there still remains plenty of scope for further improvement. The most influential landmarks, together with basic concepts and future perspectives are unraveled in this review.

D–π–A Dyes with an Intramolecular B–N Coordination Bond as a Key Scaffold for Electronic Structural Tuning and Their Application in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

“…AK2 Ar = 4-CF 3 C 6 H 4 21% AK3 Ar = 3,5-(CF 3 ) 2 to that of AK0 (¹2.36 V), demonstrating the impact of the formation of the intramolecular BN bond on decreasing the LUMO level of the present DπA system. In comparison, the reduction potentials of AK2 (¹2.03 V) and AK3 (¹1.78 V) are even further shifted to less negative potentials relative to that of AK1.…”

“…The next generation of photovoltaics, i.e., organic photovoltaics (OPVs) 2,3 and dyesensitized solar cells (DSSCs) 2,4 have also been studied intensively, and remarkable progress has been accomplished in the last decade. Perovskite-based solar cells represent a relatively young family of printable solar cells, 2,5 which have emerged recently and rapidly increased their power conversion efficiency.…”

“…The next generation of photovoltaics, i.e., organic photovoltaics (OPVs) 2,3 and dyesensitized solar cells (DSSCs) 2,4 have also been studied intensively, and remarkable progress has been accomplished in the last decade. Perovskite-based solar cells represent a relatively young family of printable solar cells, 2,5 which have emerged recently and rapidly increased their power conversion efficiency. 1,5 DSSCs represent highly promising photovoltaic devices, mostly on account of their ease and low cost of fabrication, their expected short energy-pay-back time (<1 year), operation even under diffuse-light or indoor conditions, and tunable design with respect to color and transparency.…”

Improving the efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells by photoanode surface modifications

“…This breakthrough was the origin of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Since then, DSSCs have presented a viable alternative to the standard silicon photovoltaic devices, which made this new photovoltaic technology attractive to both the scientific community and commercial interests [5][6][7].…”

“…The excited dye molecules are reduced by I − (3), and the I3 − ions formed by oxidation of I − diffuse a short distance through the electrolyte to the counter electrode, where the regenerative cycle is completed by electron transfer to reduce I3 − to I − (7). In addition to the desired pathway of the electron transfer processes described above, decay of the excited state of the dye to the ground state (1) and recombination of electrons in the semiconductor with oxidized dyes (5) or acceptors in the electrolyte (6) have a negative effect on the performance of DSSCs [8].…”