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Updated: May 7, 2026
Harvesting Solar Energy by Means of Charge-Separating Nanocrystals and Their Solids
Published on: August 23, 2012
Semiconductor hierarchically structured flower-like clusters for dye-sensitized solar cells with nearly 100% charge
Xukai Xin1, Hsiang-Yu Liu, Meidan Ye
1School of Materials Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA. zhiqun.lin@mse.gatech.edu.
Abstract:
By combining the ease of producing ZnO nanoflowers with the advantageous chemical stability of TiO2, hierarchically structured hollow TiO2 flower-like clusters were yielded via chemical bath deposition (CBD) of ZnO nanoflowers, followed by their conversion into TiO2 flower-like clusters in the presence of TiO2 precursors. The effects of ZnO precursor concentration, precursor amount, and reaction time on the formation of ZnO nanoflowers were systematically explored. Dye-sensitized solar cells fabricated by utilizing these hierarchically structured ZnO and TiO2 flower clusters exhibited a power conversion efficiency of 1.16% and 2.73%, respectively, under 100 mW cm(-2) illumination. The intensity modulated photocurrent/photovoltage spectroscopy (IMPS/IMVS) studies suggested that flower-like structures had a fast electron transit time and their charge collection efficiency was nearly 100%.
