Carrier dynamics in quantum-dot sensitized solar cells measured by transient grating and transient absorption methods

Carrier dynamics in quantum-dot sensitized solar cells (QDSSCs) was clarified by combining the information obtained by the heterodyne transient grating (HD-TG), transient absorption (TA) and transient photocurrent (TP) measurements under the short circuit conditions in the time range from microseconds to seconds. The HD-TG signal is sensitive to the ionic species at the electrode/electrolyte interface, and the electrons in the titanium oxide layer injected from quantum dots (QDs) were monitored by the TA signal, and the photocurrent as a final output was monitored by the TP signal. By using the compensating information, the whole picture of the charge dynamics was obtained in the time region after the initial electron injection from QDs into the titanium oxide layer. In the former part of this paper, the assignment of the responses for each measurement was clarified based on the previous paper on dye sensitized solar cells (S. Kuwahara, et al. Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2013, 15(16), 5975-5981). In the latter part, the effect of the device parameters for actual QDSSCs, such as electrolyte concentrations, and coating times of surface passivation of QDs were investigated.