The relatively large voltage loss (V loss ) in excitonic type solar cells severely limits their power conversion efficiencies (PCEs). Here, we report a comprehensive control of V loss through efficacious engineering of the sensitizer and redox mediator, making a breakthrough in the PCE of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs).The targeted down-regulation of V loss is successfully realized by three valid channels: (i) reducing the driving force of electron injection through dye molecular engineering, (ii) decreasing the dye regeneration overpotential through redox mediator engineering, and (iii) suppressing interfacial electron recombination.Significantly, the ''trade-off'' effect between the dye optical band gap and the open-circuit voltage (V OC ) is minimized to a great extent, achieving a distinct enhancement in photovoltaic performance (PCE 4 11.5%with V OC up to 1.1 V) for liquid junction cells. The solidification of the best-performing device leads to a PCE of 11.7%, which is so far the highest efficiency obtained for solid-state DSSCs. Our work inspires further development in highly efficient excitonic solar cells by comprehensive control of V loss .
Broader contextExcitonic type solar cells, including dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), perovskite solar cells (PSCs) and organic solar cells (OSCs), are potential alternatives for photovoltaic applications. To further advance their power conversion efficiencies (PCEs), it is crucial to reduce the so called voltage loss (V loss ) as much as possible. In DSSCs, the V loss mainly takes place in the electron injection, dye regeneration and interfacial recombination processes, whereas the targeted decreasing of V loss in all these aspects has been rarely reported. To address this issue, we herein demonstrate a comprehensive control of V loss , achieving 11.7% efficiency for solid-state DSSCs. This work is a good example of radically improving the PCE through rationally reducing V loss .