Interfacial engineering of CuO nanorod/ZnO nanowire hybrid nanostructure photoanode in dye-sensitized solar cell

Kilic B., Turkdogan S., ASTAM A., Baran S. S., Asgin M., GÜR E., ...Daha Fazla

JOURNAL OF NANOPARTICLE RESEARCH, cilt.20, sa.1, 2018 (SCI-Expanded) identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 20 Sayı: 1
  • Basım Tarihi: 2018
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1007/s11051-017-4103-4
  • Dergi Adı: JOURNAL OF NANOPARTICLE RESEARCH
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-EXPANDED), Scopus
  • Erzincan Binali Yıldırım Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

Developing efficient and cost-effective photoanode plays a vital role determining the photocurrent and photovoltage in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Here, we demonstrate DSSCs that achieve relatively high power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) by using one-dimensional (1D) zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowires and copper (II) oxide (CuO) nanorods hybrid nanostructures. CuO nanorod-based thin films were prepared by hydrothermal method and used as a blocking layer on top of the ZnO nanowires' layer. The use of 1D ZnO nanowire/CuO nanorod hybrid nanostructures led to an exceptionally high photovoltaic performance of DSSCs with a remarkably high open-circuit voltage (0.764 V), short current density (14.76 mA/cm(2) under AM1.5G conditions), and relatively high solar to power conversion efficiency (6.18%) . The enhancement of the solar to power conversion efficiency can be explained in terms of the lag effect of the interfacial recombination dynamics of CuO nanorod-blocking layer on ZnO nanowires. This work shows more economically feasible method to bring down the cost of the nano-hybrid cells and promises for the growth of other important materials to further enhance the solar to power conversion efficiency.