TiO2-Au nanocomposite materials modified photoanode with dual sensitizer for solid-state dye-sensitized solar cell

The dual-photosensitizer consisting of cadmium sulphide quantum dots (CdS QDs) and basic blue-3 (BB-3) was employed in a solid-state dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) composed of aminosilicate sol-gel functionalized titanium dioxide-gold nanocomposite material (EDAS/(P25-Au)(nps)) photoanode and degussa-TiO2 (P25) nanoparticles incorporated poly(ethylene oxide) polymer electrolyte (PEO-P25-KI-I-2). The UV-vis spectral analysis revealed that a large part of visible light is absorbed by the dual-photosensitizer (BB-3 + CdS QDs), particularly in the red region of the solar spectrum, and as a result the DSSC showed improved solar to electrical energy conversion efficiency of 0.37% under simulated AM 1.5G at 100 mW cm(-2) solar irradiation. The photovoltaic performance of (BB-3 + CdS QDs) sensitized solid-state DSSC was compared to the BB-3 sensitized solar cell, in which the former exhibited around similar to 3-fold increase in the overall solar to electrical energy conversion efficiency than that of the later. The solar to electrical energy conversion efficiency of the standard N719 dye sensitized DSSC was found to be higher than the dual sensitizer (BB-3 + CdS QDs) employed solid-state DSSC. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.