Enhancement of the photovoltaic performance of dye-sensitized solar cell using porous silicon layer as photoelectrode

Abstract

Abstract Porous Silicon Dye-sensitized solar cell (PS-DSSC) with N719 Dye was employed as photoelectrode. PS layers were formed on textured crystalline silicon CZ-Si (100) by electrochemical etching (ECE) in hydrogen fluoride (HF) based electrolyte at constant current density for different etching times. The morphological properties of the PS were investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The optical properties of the textured surfaces are studied using photoluminescence (PL) and reflectivity measurements. The bandgaps of PS from UV-Vis and PL measurements increase to 1.9 eV. The Current-Voltage (I-V) characteristics show that the short-circuit current density Jsc and the open-circuit voltage Voc increased as the porosity of the PS layer increased. These results show an improvement in the efficiency of PS-DSSC.