Investigating the role of dye dipole on open circuit voltage in solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells

Abstract

To eliminate the possibility of perturbation caused by a liquid electrolyte and predict the role played by the nature of dipole of sensitizers with respect to the observed open circuit voltage ( V oc ) in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) more precisely, solid-state DSSCs were fabricated using different sensitizing dyes. Results obtained by surface potential measurement indicate that increasing the alkyl chain length in symmetrical squaraine dyes leads to a relatively positive shift in surface potential. The use of dyes exhibiting higher surface potentials leads to the observation of increased V oc , which has been explained by the dye dipole formation at the TiO 2 /hole transporting layer interface leading to an upward shift of the TiO 2 conduction band. It is thus possible to obtain a high V oc in DSSCs by designing new dyes either having long alkyl chains or a molecular structure having a higher dipole moment exhibiting a relatively positive shift in surface potential.

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