A new method for improving the performance of dye sensitized solar cell using macro-porous silicon as photoanode

This paper presents a novel method to improve the function of dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC). The proposed method includes use of macro-porous silicon (PSi) as a photoanode for DSSC. The photoanode, PSi, was fabricated by a simple electrochemical anodization process. The effects of the obtained PSi-based photoanode on the DSSC performance are investigated by using photocurrent-voltage, UV-visible spectroscopy, and reflectance spectroscopy measurements. The results show that the macro-porous structure in the PSi-based photoanode not only increases internal surface area in the photoanode, but also functions as an anti-reflective/light-trapping layer. Macro-porous structure leads to the both enhancement of photoanode dye loading capacity and increasing the optical path length of the incident light inside the photoanode. This way, macro-porous structure plays an important role in the improvement of light harvesting efficiency. The optimal power conversion efficiency of 3.56 and 3.93 % (spin coated and sputtered TiO2 respectively) is obtained from the PSi-based DSSC, with 58 and 75 % improvement in the efficiency as compared to a fabricated conventional DSSC. The measurement results suggest that exploiting PSi in the structure of photoanode raises hopes for low-cost and high-performance production of hybrid Si/dye solar cells in the future.