Enhanced Photoelectrochemical Performances In Flexible Mesoscopic Solar Cells: An Effective Light-Scattering Material

The development of a suitable material with both effective light scattering and high surface adhesion properties that would allow a low-temperature fabrication of a mechanically stable light trapping layer is critical for today's flexible plastic dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) to reach comparable high power conversion efficiency (PEC) towards commercialization. In the present work, submicron-sized titania particles of intensive surface roughness were strategically synthesized using a combined sol-gel and thermolysis approach. When used as a light-trapping layer in flexible DSCs, the ideal strong light scattering ability of such materials enabled significant enhancement of light harvesting and thus greatly contributed to the photocurrent performances. This led to a nearly 30 % PEC improvement when compared to the flexible DSCs using nanoparticle-based photoanodes of a similar film thickness.