• 한국전기전자재료학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국전기전자재료학회 2009년도 하계학술대회 논문집
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• pp.441-441
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• 2009

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have been widely investigated as a next-generation solar cell because of their simple fabrication process and low coats. The cells use a porous nanocrystalline TiO2 matrix coated with a sensitizer dye that acts as the light-harvesting element. The photo-exited dye injects electrons into the $TiO_2$ particles, and the oxide dye reacts with I- in the electrolyte in regenerative cycle that is completed by the reduction of $I_3^-$ at a platinum-coated counter electrode. Since $TiO_2$ porous film plays a key role in the enhancement of photoelectric conversion efficiency of DSSC, many scientists focus their researches on it. Especially, a high light-to-electricity conversion efficiency results from particle size and crystallographic phase, film porosity, surface structure, charge and surface area to volume ratio of porous $TiO_2$ electrodes, on which the dye can be sufficiently adsorbed. Effective treatment of the photoanode is important to improve DSSC performance. In this paper, to obtain properties of surface and dispersion as nitric acid treated $TiO_2$ photoelectrode was investigate. The photovoltaic characteristics of DSSCs based the electrode fabricated by nitric acid pre-treatment $TiO_2$ materials gave better performances on both of short circuit current density and open circuit voltage. We compare dispersion of $TiO_2$ nanoparticles before and after nitric acid treatment and measured Ti oxidized state from XPS. Low charge transfer resistance was obtained in nitric acid treated sample than that of untreated sample. The dye-sensitized solar cell based on the nitric acid treatment had open-circuit voltage of 0.71 V, a short-circuit current of 15.2 mAcm-2 and an energy conversion efficiency of 6.6 % under light intensity of $100\;mWcm^{-2}$. About 14 % increases in efficiency obtained when the $TiO_2$ electrode was treated by nitric acid.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• 제33권5호
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• pp.1480-1484
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• 2012

We report a series of novel imidazolium iodides based ionic liquids (NMIPHI, NAIPHI, and NBIPHI) with different functional groups for the development of a quasi-solid type electrolyte for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The diffusion coefficients of redox ions ($I^-$ and $I_3{^-}$) are dependent on the molecular weight and it was higher for lighter salts. Among the three ionic liquids, NMIPHI showed highest efficiency of 4.18% when it was used in a liquid electrolyte of a DSSC with $ca$. 6 ${\mu}m$ thick $TiO_2$ mesoporous film. Even though the efficiency was $ca$. 19% lower than that obtained from a liquid electrolyte composed of PMII. When NMIPHI was mixed with PMII with a molar ratio of 1:1 in a solvent free electrolyte, the efficiency of the DSSCs was enhanced compared to that based on pristine PMII.

• 한국세라믹학회지
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• 제53권1호
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• pp.105-109
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• 2016

We prepared a working electrode (WE) with a blocking layer (BL) containing 0 ~ 0.5 wt% Ag nano powders to improve the energy conversion efficiency (ECE) of dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC). FESEM and micro-Raman were used to characterize the microstructure and phase. UV-VIS-NIR spectroscopy was employed to determine the adsorption of the WE with Ag nano powders. A solar simulator and a potentiostat were used to confirm the photovoltaic properties of the DSSC with Ag nano powders. From the results of the microstructural analysis, we confirmed that Ag nano powders with particle size of less than 150 nm were dispersed uniformly on the BL. Based on the phase and adsorption analysis, we identified the existence of Ag and found that the adsorption increased when the amount of Ag increased. The photovoltaic results show that the ECE became 4.80% with 0.3 wt%-Ag addition compared to 4.31% without Ag addition. This improvement was due to the increase of the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) of the BL resulting from the addition of Ag. Our results imply that we might be able to improve the efficiency of a DSSC by proper addition of Ag nano powder to the BL.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• 제33권2호
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• pp.670-674
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• 2012

The photovoltaic performance of solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells employing hole transport material (HTM), 2,2',7,7'-tetrakis-(N,N-di-p-methoxyphenyl-amine)-9,9'-spirobifluorene (spiro-MeOTAD), has been investigated in terms of HTM overlayer thickness. Two important parameters, soak time and spin-coating rate, are varied to control the HTM thickness. Decrease in the period of loading the spiro-MeOTAD solution on $TiO_2$ layer (soak time) leads to decrease in the HTM overlayer thickness, whereas decrease in spin-coating rate increases the HTM overlayer thickness. Photocurrent density and fill factor increase with decreasing the overlayer thickness, whereas open-circuit voltage remains almost unchanged. The improved photocurrent density is mainly ascribed to the enhanced charge transport rate, associated with the improved charge collection efficiency. Among the studied HTM overlayer thicknesses, ca. 230 nm-thick HTM overlayer demonstrates best efficiency of 4.5% at AM 1.5G one sun light intensity.

• 한국전기전자재료학회논문지
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• 제26권12호
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• pp.878-881
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• 2013

In this study, we have fabricated the dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) composed by a transparent conductive oxide (TCO), a nanocrystalline semiconductor film usually $TiO_2$, a sensitizer adsorbed on the surface of the semiconductor, an electrolyte containing a redox mediator and a counter electrode. The $TiO_2$ nanopowder was prepared by sol-gel methode. The HCl (hydrochloric acid) and TBAOH (Tetrabutyl amonium hydroxide) was added for improving the catalyst and distributed properties of $TiO_2$ nanopowder. Ammonium hydroixde was added in order to control the morphology and size of $TiO_2$ nano crystal. A $TiO_2$ paste for working electrode was prepared with the addition of HPC (hydroxypropyl cellulos) used as a binder of which volume was controled as 1.3, 1.5, 1.7, and 2.0%. The measured I-V curves of assembled DSSC showed that the cell with 1.7% HPC binder had the best efficiency of 6.79%.

• 한국진공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국진공학회 2012년도 제43회 하계 정기 학술대회 초록집
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• pp.423-423
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• 2012

Recently, many researchers made progress in various studies improving the efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cell. In this paper, we used glass textured by wet-chemical etching process for improvement of photocurrent density in dye-sensitized solar cells. This is owing to increase coefficient of light utilization. Consequently, DSSC using the textured glass exhibit a Jsc of 9.49 mA/$cm^2$, a Voc of 0.73 V and a fill factor (FF) of 0.67 with an overall conversion efficiency of 4.64. This result showed increasing of 20% current density and 16% conversion efficiency using the textured glass. These results suggested that glass texturing was very effective in controlling the light-scattering properties into the photovoltaic cell.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• 제32권spc8호
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• pp.3031-3038
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• 2011

Ion-coordinating ruthenium complexes [cis-Ru(dcbpy)(L)(NCS)$_2$, where dcbpy is 4,4'-dicarboxylic acid-2,2'-bipyridine and L is 1,4,7,10-tetraoxa-13-azacyclopentadecane, JK-121, or bis(2-(2-methoxy-ethoxy)ethyl) amine, JK-122] have been synthesized and characterized using $^1H$ NMR, Fourier transform IR, UV/vis spectroscopy, and cyclic voltammetry. The effect of $Li^+$ in the electrolyte on the photovoltaic performance was investigated. With the stepwise addition of $Li^+$ to a liquid electrolyte, the device shows significant increase in the photo-current density, but a small decrease in the open circuit voltage. The solar cell with a hole conductor, the addition of $Li^+$ resulted in a 30% improvement in efficiency. The JK-121 sensitized cells in the liquid and solid-state electrolyte give power conversion efficiencies of 6.95% and 2.59%, respectively, under the simulated sunlight.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• 제33권9호
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• pp.3043-3047
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• 2012

To investigate the scattering layer effect of a $TiO_2$ multilayer in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), we designed a new DSSC system, assembled with a CdS-$TiO_2$ scattering layer electrode. A high-magnification SEM image exhibited hollyhock-like particles with a width of 1.5-2.0 ${\mu}m$ that were aggregated into 10-nm clumps in a hexagonal petal shape. The efficiency was higher in the DSSC assembled with a CdS-$TiO_2$ scattering layer than in the DSSC assembled with $TiO_2$-only layers, due to the decreased resistance in electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The short-circuit current density ($J_{sc}$) was increased by approximately 7.26% and the open-circuit voltage ($V_{oc}$) by 2.44% over the 1.0 wt % CdS-$TiO_2$ composite scattering layer and the incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency (IPCE) in the maximum peak was also enhanced by about 5.0%, compared to the DSSC assembled without the CdS-$TiO_2$scattering layer.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• 제34권9호
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• pp.2583-2588
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• 2013

A new type of solid and gel-state ionics based on siloxane pyridinium iodides was synthesized and used as electrolytes in dye-sensitized solar cells. The resulting electrolytes were characterized by $^1H$ NMR spectroscopy, TGA and diffusion coefficient. The synthesized siloxane pyridinium iodide electrolytes have characteristics of different chain length of siloxane moieties. The ion conductivities were given 2.7-3.2 S/cm. Among the three SiDPIs based electrolytes, DSSC employing the SiDPI2 gives an open circuit voltage of 0.704 V, a short-circuit current of 15.85 $mA/cm^2$ and conversion efficiency of 6.8% under light intensity of 100 $mW/cm^2$. In addition, the performance of the DSSCs showed relatively reasonable compared with the propylpyridinium iodide (PPI) electrolyte.

• 한국진공학회:학술대회논문집
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• 한국진공학회 2016년도 제50회 동계 정기학술대회 초록집
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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%).