Synthesis and Characterization of Zinc Oxide Nanosheets for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Zinc oxide (ZnO) nanosheets were synthesized by a simple and facile hydrothermal process and characterized in terms of their morphological, structural, compositional, optical and photovoltaic properties. The detailed characterization revealed that the synthesized ZnO material possess nanosheet morphologies which are grown in very high density, possessing well-crystallinity with wurtzite hexagonal phase and exhibiting good optical properties. Further, the synthesized ZnO nanosheets were used as photoanode material to fabricate efficient dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC). The fabricated DSSC shows an overall light-to-electricity conversion efficiency of -1.57%, open-circuit voltage (V(OC)) of 0.552 V, short-circuit currents (J(SC)) of -7.2 mA/cm2 and fill factors (FF) of 0.40.