Monash University of Australia Innovation for Tripling Energy Conversion in Solar Cells


Scientists at Monash University, in collaboration with colleagues from the universities of Wollongong and Ulm in Germany, have produced tandem dye-sensitised solar cells with a three-fold increase in energy conversion efficiency compared with previously reported tandem dye-sensitised solar cells.

Lead researcher Dr Udo Bach, from Monash University, said the breakthrough had the potential to increase the energy generation performance of the cells and make them a viable and competitive alternative to traditional silicon solar cells.

Dr Bach said the key was the discovery of a new, more efficient type of dye that made the operation of inverse dye-sensitised solar cells much more efficient.

When the research team combined two types of dye-sensitised solar cell — one inverse and the other classic — into a simple stack, they were able to produce for the first time a tandem solar cell that exceeded the efficiency of its individual components.

“The tandem approach — stacking many solar cells together — has been successfully used in conventional photovoltaic devices to maximise energy generation, but there have been obstacles in doing this with dye-sensitised cells because there has not been a method for creating an inverse system that would allow dye molecules to efficiently pass on positive charges to a semiconductor when illuminated with light,” Dr Bach said.

Nature Materials: Highly efficient photocathodes for dye-sensitized tandem solar cells

Thin-film dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) based on mesoporous semiconductor electrodes are low-cost alternatives to conventional silicon devices. High-efficiency DSCs typically operate as photoanodes (n-DSCs), where photocurrents result from dye-sensitized electron injection into n-type semiconductors. Dye-sensitized photocathodes (p-DSCs) operate in an inverse mode, where dye-excitation is followed by rapid electron transfer from a p-type semiconductor to the dye (dye-sensitized hole injection). Such p-DSCs and n-DSCs can be combined to construct tandem solar cells (pn-DSCs) with a theoretical efficiency limitation well beyond that of single-junction DSCs. Nevertheless, the efficiencies of such tandem pn-DSCs have so far been hampered by the poor performance of the available p-DSCs. Here we show for the first time that p-DSCs can convert absorbed photons to electrons with yields of up to 96%, resulting in a sevenfold increase in energy conversion efficiency compared with previously reported photocathodes7. The donor–acceptor dyes, studied as photocathodic sensitizers, comprise a variable-length oligothiophene bridge, which provides control over the spatial separation of the photogenerated charge carriers. As a result, charge recombination is decelerated by several orders of magnitude and tandem pn-DSCs can be constructed that exceed the efficiency of their individual components.

“Inverse dye-sensitised solar cells are the key to producing dye-sensitised tandem solar cells, but the challenge has been to find a way to make them perform more effectively. By creating a way of making inverse dye-sensitised solar cells operate very efficiently we have opened the way for dye-sensitised tandem solar cells to become a commercial reality.”

Although dye-sensitised solar cells have been the focus of research for a number of years because they can be fabricated with relative simplicity and cost-efficiency, their effectiveness has not been on par with high-performance silicon solar cells.

Dr Bach said the breakthrough, which is detailed in a paper published in Nature Materials, was an important milestone in the ongoing development of viable and efficient solar cell technology.

“While this new tandem technology is still in its early infancy, it represents an important first step towards the development of the next generation of solar cells that can be produced at low cost and with energy efficient production methods,” he said.

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