• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.209-215
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• 2013

DSSCs electrical characteristics and efficiency fabricated with different tape casting thickness Pt counter electrodes and different thickness between $TiO_2$ photo electrode and Pt counter electrode substrate were studied. 1 layer Pt counter electrode shows 3.979% efficiency. Efficiency increased as tape casting thickness decreased. The lowest open-circuit voltage was a 0.726 V and the highest short-circuit current was a 2.188 mA on 1 layer Pt counter electrode. On the different thickness between two substrates, the lowest open-circuit voltage 0.712 V and the highest short-circuit current 2.787 mA was measured at $60{\mu}m$ surlyn film thickness and it shows the highest value of 5.067% efficiency.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.59 no.3
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• pp.588-593
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• 2010

Sputter deposition on a Pt counter electrode was studied using radio frequency (RF) plasma as the improvement of incident photon to current conversion efficiency (IPCE) for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs). Effects of the sputtering thickness and the incident angle on a Pt counter electrode for DSCs were investigated. Experiments to get the optimal sputtering time for the performance of the DSCs were carried out. And it is found that the optimized sputtering time was 120 seconds, in addition, the incident angles of the substrate was adjusted from $0^{\circ}$ to $60^{\circ}$. The maximum efficiency of 5.37% was obtained at the incident angle of $40^{\circ}$ with an active cell area of $1cm^2$.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.05a
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• pp.419-421
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• 2008

Sputter deposition on a Pt counter electrode was studied using RF plasma as the improvement of conversion efficiency for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSC). The effects of the sputtering thickness and incident angle on a Pt counter electrode for DSC was scrutinized. We conducted the experiment to get the optimal sputtering time for the performance of the DSC. Under the sputtering time condition of 120 seconds, we varied the incident angles of substrate from $0^{\circ}$ to $60^{\circ}$. Under standard test condition (AM 1.5, 100mW/$cm^2$), we obtained the maximum efficiency of 4.61% at the incident angle of $40^{\circ}$ with an active cell area of $1cm^2$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Surface Engineering Conference
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• 2012.05a
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• pp.227-228
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• 2012

In interfaces between carbon black or Pt and FTO glass in dye-sensitized solar cell counter electrodes, a marginal resistant channel for electrons, we tried to improve the connection by modifying the sintering process. A stepwise sintering process for carbon black and Pt counter electrodes was applied and its effect on power conversion efficiency was studied. Power conversion efficiencies of built-in DSSC made by a one-step sintering process with carbon black and Pt counter electrodes were about 5.01% and 5.02%, respectively. Cells made with the stepwise sintering process were 5.96% and 6.21%, respectively, indicating an 20% improvement. Fill factor (FF) increased, and it was them main reason for the power conversion efficiency improvement. Step wise sintering increased the adhesion of the interface and reduced the film thickness and surface roughness. As a result, the resistivity of the counter electrode and EIS impedance of DSSCs decreased.

• Korean Journal of Metals and Materials
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• v.50 no.3
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• pp.243-247
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• 2012

A ruthenium (Ru) catalytic layer and a conventional Pt layer were assessed as counter electrodes (CE) for dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Ru films with different thicknesses of 34, 46, and 90 nm were deposited by atomic layer deposition (ALD). Pt layers with the same thicknesses were prepared by sputtering. $0.45cm^2$ DSSCs were prepared and their properties were characterized by FE-SEM, cyclic voltammetry (CV), impedance spectroscopy (EIS), and current-voltage (I-V). FE-SEM revealed that the crystallized Ru films and Pt films had been deposited quite conformally. CV showed that the catalytic activity of Pt was much greater than that of Ru. In addition, although the catalytic activity of Pt did not depend on the thickness, that of Ru showed an increase with increasing thickness. Impedance analysis revealed high charge transfer resistance at the Ru interface and a decrease with increasing Ru thickness, whereas Pt showed low resistance with no thickness dependence. Despite the relatively small catalytic activity of Ru, the I-V result revealed the average energy conversion efficiency of Ru and Pt to be 2.98% and 6.57%, respectively. These results suggest that Ru can be used as counter electrodes in DSSCs due to its extremely low temperature process compatibility.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2016.02a
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• pp.276.2-276.2
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• 2016

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) are promising candidates for light-to-energy conversion devices due to their low-cost, easy fabrication and relative high conversion efficiency. An important component of DSCs is counter electrode (CE) collect electrons from external circuit and reduct I3- to I-. The conventional CEs are thermally decomposed Pt on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) glass substrates, which have shown excellent performance and stability. However, Pt is not suitable in terms of cost effect. In this report, we demonstrated that nickel sulfide thin films by atomic layer deposition (ALD)-using Nickel(1-dimethylamino-2-methyl-2-butanolate)2 and hydrogen sulfide at low temperatures of $90-200^{\circ}C$-could be good CEs in DSCs. Notably, ALD allows the thin films to grow with good reproducibility, precise thickness control and excellent conformality at the angstrom or monolayer level. The nickel sulfide films were characterized using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, hall measurements and cyclic voltammetry. The ALD grown nickel sulfide thin films showed high catalytic activity for the reduction of I3- to I- in DSC. The DSCs with the ALD-grown nickel sulfide thin films as CEs showed the solar cell efficiency of 7.12% which is comparable to that of the DSC with conventional Pt coated counter electrode (7.63%).

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2005.07a
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• pp.615-616
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• 2005

Carbon Nanotubes (CNT) on flexible indium tin oxide (ITO) PET films were prepared for dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC). These CNTs were prepared by spray coating method for various amount of light transparency. Also, Pt counter electrode was prepared by electro deposition method. All $TiO_2$ electrodes were deposited on ITO-PET films by spray coating method. Micro structural images show that CNT counter electrodes prepared by spray-coating have more dense structure with increasing spraying time (0 to 60 seconds). DSSC consisting of $TiO_2$ electrode and CNT counter electrode was fabricated with various amount of light absorption. DSSC have higher light energy conversion efficiency with increasing the thickness of CNT counter electrode. CNT counter electrode is at least compatible to that of CNT counter electrode.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.302-304
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• 2007

전세계적으로 에너지난과 환경오염난을 겪고 있는 가운데 최근 대체에너지에 대한 관심이 어느 때보다 높은 시기이다. 다양한 대체에너지 중에서도 태양광 에너지는 우리나라 환경에 적합해 많은 연구가 진행 중인 분야이다. 대부분의 태양광 발전 시장이 결정질 실리콘 태양전지가 차지하고 있으나 경제성의 한계로 인해 최근 염료감응형 태양전지가 이를 대체할 수 있는 전지로 주목받고 있다. 본 연구에서는 염료감응형 태양전지의 상대전극에 증착하는 백금층의 두께 변화가 가져오는 출력특성의 영향을 연구했다. 상대전극에 증착되는 백금 박막은 염료감응형 태양전지의 매커니즘에서 입사광의 반사와 전기화학적 촉매작용 역할을 하는 것으로 박막의 두께가 두꺼워지면 반사율이 증가해 염료 분자가 받는 에너지가 늘어날 것으로 예상했다. 상대전극에 백금 Sputtering하는 시간을 1분에서 최대 5분까지 차를 두어 상대전극의 백금 박막의 두께를 $50nm{\sim}250nm$로 변화를 주어 측정한 결과, 250nm의 백금 박막층을 갖는 염료감응형 태양전지보다 백금 박막층이 150nm의 두께를 가질 때 가장 좋은 효율을 출력한다는 것을 알 수 있었다. 이를 통해 상대전극의 백금 박막층에 의한 거울 효과와 촉매작용의 한계와 전자의 흐름 장애에 대한 결과를 얻을 수 있었다.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.11a
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• pp.53.2-53.2
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• 2011

Dye-sensitized solar cells(DSSCs) have been recognized as an alternative to the conventional p-n junction solar cells because of their simple fabrication process, low production cost, and transparency. A typical DSSC consists of a transparent conductive oxide (TCO) electrode, a dye-sensitized oxide semiconductor nanoparticle layer, liquid redox electrolyte, and a Pt-counter electrode. In dye-sensitized solar cells, charge recombination processes at interfaces between coducting glass, $TiO_2$, dye, and electrolyte play an important role in limiting the photon-to-electron conversion efficiency. A layer of ZTO thin film less than ~200nm in thickness, as a blocking layer, was deposited by DC magnetron sputtering method directly onto the anode electrode to be isolated from the electrolyte in dye-sensitized solar cells(DSCs). This is to prevent the electrons from back-transferring from the electrode to the electrolyte ($I^-/I_3^-$). The presented DSCs were fabricated with working electrode of Ga-doped ZnO glass coated with blocking ZTO layer, dye-attached nanoporous $TiO_2$ layer, gel electrolyte and counter electrode of Pt-deposited GZO glass. The effects of blocking layer were studied with respect to impedance and conversion efficiency of the cells.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2004.11a
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• pp.687-690
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• 2004

Fabrication and characterization of dye-sensitized TiO2 solar cells(DSSC) consisting of spray-coated TiO2 electrode, an electrolyte containing I-/I3- redox couple, and a Pt-coated counter electrode carried out, using mainly FE-SEM and solar simulator. Also, effect of rapid thermal annealing(RTA) temperatue on I-V curves of DSSCS consisting of approximately 10m thickness and $5{\times}5mm2$ active area. No significant difference in the apparent size of TiO2 clusters was observed with increasing RTA temperature. Also, an open circuit voltage(Voc) of approximately 0.70V and a short-circuit photocurrent(Jsc) of 8 to 12mA/cm2 were observed in the TiO2 solar cell. With increasing RTA temperature upto 550oC, photocurrent density of dye-sensitized solar cells was enhanced, leading to enhancing the efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells having Pt-electroplated counter electrode.