Solid-state synthesis of ZnO and ZnFe2O4 to form p-n junction composite in the use of dye sensitized solar cells

In this study, ZnO and ZnFe2O4 nanostructures are rapidly synthesized at relatively low temperature and without any organic surfactants using an economical, simple, and environmentally friendly solid-state synthesis. Results shows that the formation of p-n heterojunction electric field at the interface between ZnFe2O4 and ZnO is significantly effective in improving the open-circuit voltage (V-oc) by efficiently promoting the separation efficiency of photogenerated electron-hole pairs on the surface of semiconductor, and an enhanced light-to-electric energy conversion efficiency of the dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) reaches 7.28%, which improve by 54.9% compared with that of pure ZnO based DSSCs (4.70%). (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.