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Updated: May 2, 2026
Well-aligned Vertically Oriented ZnO Nanorod Arrays and their Application in Inverted Small Molecule Solar Cells
Published on: April 25, 2018
Design of efficient dye-sensitized solar cells with patterned ZnO-ZnS core-shell nanowire array photoanodes
Xiang Chen1, Zhiming Bai, Xiaoqin Yan
1State Key Laboratory for Advanced Metals and Materials, School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China. yuezhang@ustb.edu.cn.
Abstract:
The fabrication of photoanodes with a high light-harvesting ability, direct electron pathway and low exciton recombination is a key challenge in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) today. In this paper, large-scale patterned ZnO-ZnS core-shell nanowire arrays (NWAs) are designed and fabricated as such photoanodes for the fist time. By using the NWA photoanodes with a hexagonal symmetry and FTO-Pt cathodes with an Al reflecting layer, the resulting DSSCs demonstrate a maxiumum efficiency of 2.09%, which is an improvement of 140% compared to the reference cells with line symmetry and no reflecting layer. This improvement is attributed to the enhanced light-harvesting ability of the patterned NWAs, as well as to the remarkable double absorption caused by the Al reflecting layer. Additionally, the ZnO core provides a direct electron pathway and the ZnS shell simultaneously reduces exciton recombination. This study shows an effective method to improve the performance of DSSCs which could be extended to other nanodevices and nanosystems.
