A new structure of counter electrode used for dye-sensitized solar cells

A new structure of counter electrode, which was formed by platinum thin film, FTO, glass, and silver thin film or silver nanoparticles, was proposed. As we have known, the design of sunlight utilization in solar cells was very important for enhancing the energy conversion efficiency. Compared with the conventional counter electrode structure (platinum film, FTO and glass), this new structure that coated with a layer of silver or silver nanoparticles on the back side of conductive glass, can obviously make much more use of sunlight and increase the short-circuit current from 11.60mA/cm(2) to 15.48mA/cm(2). As a result, the energy conversion efficiency of the dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) was improved from 4.39% to 6.05% under AM1.5. It was evident that this new structure of counter electrode only utilized the reflectance of silver and had no effect on improving conductance of the counter electrode. (C) 2010 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim