• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.120.2-120.2
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• 2011

The improvement of solar energy-to-electricity conversion efficiency has continued to be an important research area of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The mechanism of DSSCs is based on the injection of electrons from the photoexcited dye into the conduction band of nanocrystalline TiO2 or ZnO. Thus, the electronic structures, such as HOMO, LUMO, and HOMO-LUMO band gaps of dye moleculed in DSSC are deeply related to the electron transfer by photoexcitation and redox potential. Organic dyes, because of their many advantages, such as high molar extinction coefficients, convenience of customized molecular design for desired photophysical and photochemical properties, inexpensiveness with no transition metals contained, and environment-friendliness, are suitable as photosensitizers for DSSC. We believe that practically useful organic dye photosensitizers can be produced by exploiting electron donor/acceptor system with proper length of ${\pi}$-conjugation in a chromophore to control the absorption wavelength and enhance the photovoltaic performance. In this research, We designed and synthesized organic dyes also investigated the photoelectrochemical properties of a series of ionic dyes in DSSCs.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.05a
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• pp.428-430
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• 2008

Dye-sensitized solar cell has many internal resistant components such as Pt counter electrode, $TiO_2$/dye/electrolyte, charge diffusion, sheet resistance of TCO. Among these, the resistance about the counter electrode can be reduced by increasing the roughness factor of Pt counter electrode. This causes the increase of fill factor and improvement of efficiency. And the amount of light reflection on the counter electrode also increases as the roughness factor goes up. In our experiment, we suggest a new deposition structure of Pt thin film that is a stepped-type structure. The more step lines are in the counter electrode, the more roughness factor is. As a result, we get the improvement of fill factor and efficiency by controlling the roughness factor of counter electrode.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.175-179
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• 2015

In this study, we propose Ti hole pattern structure on the transparent conductive oxide (TCO) less dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) using the lift-off process to improve the low light transmittance and low efficiency caused by opaque Ti electrode. The formation of Ti hole patterns make it possible to move the dye adsorption and electrolyte. The DSSCs with Ti hole patterns showed a higher photoelectric conversion efficiency (PCE) than those with general structure by 11.1%. As a result, The Ti hole pattern structure can be improved to increase the light absorption of the dyes and PCE of the TCO-less DSSCs is also increased.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.483.2-483.2
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• 2014

In this study, we describe a simple selective etching method that produces noncurling, freestanding, large-area, aligned $TiO_2$ nanotube (NT) with doubly ends opened. The novel selective etching process only removed the thin 2nd bottom layer from the physically and chemically stable thick amorphous 1st top layer under thermal treatment at $250^{\circ}C$, yielding ordered doubly open-ended NT (DNT) that could be easily transferred to an FTO substrate for the fabrication of front-illuminated dye sensitized solar cells (DSCs). The DNT-DSCs yielded a higher PCE (8.6%) than was observed from $TiO_2$ nanoparticle (TNP)-based DSCs (7.3%), for comparable film thicknesses of $16{\mu}m$, despite of 20% decreased amount of dye. Intensity-modulated photocurrent and photovoltage spectroscopy (IMPS and IMVS, respectively) revealed that the DNT-DSCs exhibited electron lifetimes that were 10 times longer than those of TNP-DSCs, which contributed to high device performances.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.91-96
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• 2015

Optical modeling and characterization of transparent dye-sensitized solar cells (DSC) are presented to design and estimate DSC devices numerically. In order to model the inhomogeneous active layer of DSC, the porous structure of titanium oxide ($TiO_2$) and dye mixture, we prepared films consisting of layer by layer of the DSC's basic materials sequentially, and characterized the optical parameters of the films with the effective refractive index, which was extracted from the transmittance and reflectance measurements in ultra violet to near infra-red range. By using the effective refractive index, we made the optical model for DSC, and demonstrated that the optical model based on effective refractive index can be used to design and evaluate the performance of transparent-type DSC modules.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.1 no.2
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• pp.69-74
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• 2010

Methodologies to improve photovoltaic performance of dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) are reviewed. DSSC is usually composed of a dye-adsorbed $TiO_2$ photoanode, a tri-iodide/iodide redox electrolyte and a Pt counter electrode. Among the photovoltaic parameters of short-circuit photocurrent density, open-circuit voltage and fill factor, short-circuit photocurrent density is the collective measure of light harvesting, charge separation and charge collection efficiencies. Internal quantum efficiency is known to reach almost 100%, which indicates that charge separation occurs without loss by recombination. Thus, light harvesting efficiency plays an important role in improvement of photocurrent. In this paper, technologies to improve light harvesting efficiency, including surface area improvement by nano-dispersion, size-dependent light scattering efficiency, bi-functional nano material, panchromatic absorption by selective positioning of three different dyes and transparent conductive oxide (TCO)-less DSSC, are introduced.

• Transactions on Electrical and Electronic Materials
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.86-89
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• 2013

Dye-sensitized solar cells have a FTO/$TiO_2$/Dye/Electrode/Pt counter electrode structure, yet more than a 10% electron loss occurs at each interface. A passivating layer between the $TiO_2$/FTO glass interface can prevent this loss of electrons. In theory, ZnO has excellent electron collecting capabilities and a 3.4 eV band gap, which suppresses electron mobility. FTO glass was coated with ZnO thin films by RF-magnetron sputtering; each film was deposited under different $O_2$:Ar ratios and RF-gun power. The optical transmittance of the ZnO thin film depends on the thickness and morphology of ZnO. The conversion efficiency was measured with the maximum value of 5.22% at an Ar:$O_2$ ratio of 1:1 and RF-gun power of 80 W, due to effective prevention of the electron recombination into electrolytes.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.214-222
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• 2019

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have been receiving growing attentions as a potential alternative to order photovoltaic devices due to their high efficiency and low manufacturing cost. DSSCs are composed of a photosensitizing dye adsorbed on a mesoporous film of nanocrystalline $TiO_2$ as a photoelectrode, an electrolyte containing triiodide/iodide redox couple, and a platinized counter electrode. To improve photovoltaic properties of DSSCs, new dicationic salts based on ionic liquids were synthesized. Quite comparable efficiencies were obtained from electrolytes with new dicationic iodide salts. The best cell performance of 7.96% was obtained with dicationic salt of PBDMIDI.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2010.06a
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• pp.64.2-64.2
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• 2010

In order to improve the overall power conversion efficiency in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), it is very important to secure the sufficient surface area of photocatalytic nanoparticles layer for absorbing dye molecules. It is because increasing the amount of dye absorbed generally results in increasing the amount of light harvesting. In this work, we proposed a new method for increasing the specific surface area of photocatalytic titanium oxide ($TiO_2$) nanoparticles by using an inorganic templating method. Salt-$TiO_2$ composite nanoparticles were synthesized in this approach by spray pyrolyzing both the titanium butoxide and sodium chloride solution. After aqueous removal of salt from salt-$TiO_2$ composite nanoparticles, mesoporous $TiO_2$ nanoparticles with pore size of 2~50 nm were formed and then the specific surface area of resulting porous $TiO_2$ nanoparticle was measured by Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) method. Generally, commercially available P-25 with the average primary size of ~25 nm $TiO_2$ nanoparticles was used as an active layer for dye-sensitized solarcells, and the specific surface area of P-25 was found to be ~50 $m^2/g$. On the other hand, the specific surface area of mesoporous $TiO_2$ nanoparticles prepared in this approach was found to be ~286 $m^2/g$, which is 5 times higher than that of P-25. The increased specific surface area of $TiO_2$ nanoparticles will absorb relatively more dye molecules, which can increase the short curcuit current (Jsc) in DSSCs. The influence of nanoporous structures of $TiO_2$ on the performance of DSSCs will be discussed in terms of the amount of dye molecules absorbed, the fill factor, the short circuit current, and the power conversion efficiency.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.11a
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• pp.567-567
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• 2005