Fabrication and characterization of dye-sensitized solar cell with different microstructure ZnO

In order to improve the performance of the dye-sensitized solar cells based on ZnO films, ZnO nanoparticles of different size and morphology were prepared by hydrothermal and solvothermal synthesis methods. Electrodes applied to dye-sensitized solar cell were prepared by the screen-printing method. The effects of ZnO nanoparticles of different size and morphology on the photovoltaic characteristics of dye-sensitized ZnO solar cells were investigated. The results show that: The short-circuit current density and the energy conversion efficiency of the ZnO nanosheets DSSC are 0.13 mA/cm(2) and 0.02%. The short-circuit current density and the energy conversion efficiency of cells prepared with ZnO nanorods with diameter 500nm and length 5 mu m are 1.91 mA/cm(2) and 0.03%. The best performance achieved in the present work was a conversion efficiency of 3.46% for the cells prepared with ZnO nanoparticles with diameters 80nm.