Pretreatment of H2O2 is performed on titanium (Ti) foil as an efficient photoanode substrate for dye‐sensitized solar cell (DSSC). The H2O2‐treated Ti shows high surface area because of the formation of networked TiO2 nanosheets, which enhances electrical contact between screen‐printed TiO2 nanoparticles and Ti foil. Electron transfer on the photoanode is improved, as identified by reduced charge transfer resistance and improved electron transport properties. Compared with DSSC based on non‐treated Ti photoanode, DSSC with this H2O2‐treated Ti photoanode exhibits remarkable increases in short‐circuit current density (from 8.55 to 14.38 mA/cm2) and energy conversion efficiency (from 4.68 to 7.10%) under AM1.5 back‐side illumination. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

No abstract

A metalized plastic substrate made of a polyimide film coated with a Ni/Pt bi-layer is prepared as counterelectrode for dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC). Surface metallization of Ni/Pt on polyimide is carried out via a chemical process, where top Pt acts as the catalyst and bottom Ni is the conduction/light-reflection layer. This counterelectrode possesses superior sheet resistance (0.173 X/h) and charge transfer resistance (0.38 X cm2). The DSSC based on this metalized polyimide counterelectrode exhibits an enhanced fill factor (0.7), and accordingly its energy conversion efficiency achieves 7.12%, which is better than those assembled with other platinized counterelectrodes prepared by sputtering

Ta2O5–ZnO composite films with varied composition were fabricated by sol–gel processing and applied as cathodic buffer layers (CBLs) for inverted polymer solar cells, and demonstrated enhanced power conversion efficiency with excellent stability.