ENHANCING THE EFFICIENCY OF AZO-BASED DYE SENSITIZED SOLAR CELLS BY SURFACE TREATMENTS
JEANINA LUNGU 1, ADRIAN GEORGESCU 1, ANCA DUMBRAVA 2* 1. Ovidius University of Constanta, Department of Physics,
124 Mamaia Blvd., Constanta, Romania
2. Ovidius University of Constanta, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, 124 Mamaia Blvd., Constanta, Romania
*Corresponding author: adumbrava@univ-ovidius.ro
We studied the conductive glass and/or the semiconductor surface treatments with aluminum ions as a technique to enhance the characteristics of dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) based on Al-doped ZnO. The aluminum ions were deposited on the surfaces using aluminum isopropoxide as precursor, by an easy and efficient method. We measured the characteristics of the dye sensitized solar cells based on pre- and/or post-treated electrodes. Our study showed a clear enhancement of cells efficiencies for the DSSCs based on Al(III) pre-treated electrodes (i.e. a percentage increase of almost 18 %) and also a smaller improvement in the efficiencies of DSSCs based on Al(III) post-treated photoelectrodes (i.e. a percentage increase of almost 10 %), giving a overall enhance of about 21 % reported to the untreated photoelectrode based DSSC.
