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The present paper reports the fabrication of dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC), where boron doped ZnO (BZO) and aluminum-boron co-doped ZnO (AZB) thin films were used as front window electrodes. The highly crystalline zinc oxide (ZnO) nanoparticles (NPs) synthesized by the sol-gel route were used as host material for the dye. The efficiencies of the DSSCs formed using the BZO and AZB as window layers were obtained to be 1.56 and 1.84%, respectively. The enhanced efficiency in the case of an AZB window layer based DSSC is attributed to the increase in conductivity induced by co-doping of Al and B and an increase in the number of conducting pathways between the window layer and NPs provided by the nanorods. This facilitates a new approach in the window layer (doped ZnO) for DSSC application.

ZnO nanocrystalline thin films have been prepared on glass substrates by sol-gel dip coating method. ZnO thin films have been coated at room temperature and at four different pH values of 4, 6, 8 and 10. The X-ray diffraction pattern showed that ZnO nanocrystalline thin films are of hexagonal structure and the grain size was found to be in the range of 25-45 nm. Scanning electron microscopic images show that the surface morphology improves with increase of pH values. TEM analysis reveals formation of ZnO nanocrystalline with an average grain size of 44 nm. The compositional analysis results show that Zn and O are present in the sample. Optical band studies show that the films are highly transparent and exhibit a direct bandgap. The bandgap has been found to lie in the range of 3•14-3•32 eV depending on pH suggesting the formation of ZnO nanocrystalline thin films.

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