Solid state plasmonic dye sensitized solar cells based on solution processed perovskite CsSnI3 as the hole transporter

Perovskite CsSnI3 was synthesized by a facile low temperature solution based method and used as a hole transport material in solid state dye sensitized solar cells (ss-DSCs). DSCs with an efficiency of similar to 3.5% were fabricated in this fashion. Further, by adopting a plasmonics concept for enhancing the absorption process in the device, gold nanoparticles with optimized concentration having an average size similar to 18 nm were mixed in TiO2 paste to fabricate plasmonic ss-DSCs. An enhancement of similar to 23% in photocurrent was observed and an efficiency of similar to 4.2% was obtained for the case of plasmonic ss-DSCs fabricated with an Au-TiO2 weight ratio of 0.3 wt%. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy study revealed enhanced electron lifetimes for plasmonic ss-DSCs, which are due to the accelerated charge transport under the Au NPs plasmon near-fields leading to a reduction in transport resistance and the recombination process.