Effect of bath temperature on the performance of ZnO nanorod-based thin film solar cells

Almost vertically aligned ZnO nanorods have been grown on indium-doped tin oxide substrates via a simple hydrothermal method at various bath temperatures. After being sensitized by N3 dye, three kinds of nanorod photoanodes were used for assembling dye-sensitized solar cells. The photovoltaic performance of the cell was found to be strongly dependent on the bath temperature used to synthesize the ZnO nanorods. A comparative study shows that ZnO nanorods prepared at lower bath temperature adsorb maximum dye molecules (~9.8 × 10−8 mol/cm2) and could effectively retard charge recombination and achieve longer electron life time. As a result, the DSSCs fabricated using ZnO nanorods prepared at lower bath temperature exhibit better performance than those prepared at higher bath temperatures.