Ren Yameng, Zhang Dan, Suo Jiajia, Cao Yiming, Eickemeyer Felix T, Vlachopoulos Nick, Zakeeruddin Shaik M, Hagfeldt Anders, Grätzel Michael
Laboratory of Photonics and Interfaces, Institute of Chemical Sciences & Engineering, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Laboratory of Photomolecular Science, Institute of Chemical Sciences & Engineering, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Nature. 2023 Jan;613(7942):60-65. doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-05460-z. Epub 2022 Oct 26.
Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) convert light into electricity by using photosensitizers adsorbed on the surface of nanocrystalline mesoporous titanium dioxide (TiO) films along with electrolytes or solid charge-transport materials. They possess many features including transparency, multicolour and low-cost fabrication, and are being deployed in glass facades, skylights and greenhouses. Recent development of sensitizers, redox mediators and device structures has improved the performance of DSCs, particularly under ambient light conditions. To further enhance their efficiency, it is pivotal to control the assembly of dye molecules on the surface of TiO to favour charge generation. Here we report a route of pre-adsorbing a monolayer of a hydroxamic acid derivative on the surface of TiO to improve the dye molecular packing and photovoltaic performance of two newly designed co-adsorbed sensitizers that harvest light quantitatively across the entire visible domain. The best performing cosensitized solar cells exhibited a power conversion efficiency of 15.2% (which has been independently confirmed) under a standard air mass of 1.5 global simulated sunlight, and showed long-term operational stability (500 h). Devices with a larger active area of 2.8 cm exhibited a power conversion efficiency of 28.4% to 30.2% over a wide range of ambient light intensities, along with high stability. Our findings pave the way for facile access to high-performance DSCs and offer promising prospects for applications as power supplies and battery replacements for low-power electronic devices that use ambient light as their energy source.
染料敏化太阳能电池（DSCs）通过使用吸附在纳米晶介孔二氧化钛（TiO₂）薄膜表面的光敏剂以及电解质或固体电荷传输材料将光转化为电能。它们具有许多特性，包括透明度、多色性和低成本制造，并且正在被应用于玻璃幕墙、天窗和温室中。近年来，敏化剂、氧化还原介质和器件结构的发展提高了染料敏化太阳能电池的性能，尤其是在环境光条件下。为了进一步提高其效率，关键在于控制染料分子在TiO₂表面的组装，以促进电荷产生。在此，我们报道了一种在TiO₂表面预吸附单层异羟肟酸衍生物的方法，以改善两种新设计的共吸附敏化剂的染料分子堆积和光伏性能，这两种敏化剂能够在整个可见光域定量捕获光。性能最佳的共敏化太阳能电池在标准空气质量为1.5的全球模拟太阳光下，功率转换效率达到了15.2%（已得到独立验证），并表现出长期运行稳定性（500小时）。有效面积为2.8平方厘米的器件在广泛的环境光强度范围内，功率转换效率为28.4%至30.2%，同时具有高稳定性。我们的研究结果为轻松获得高性能染料敏化太阳能电池铺平了道路，并为作为低功率电子设备的电源和电池替代品的应用提供了广阔前景，这些设备以环境光作为能源。
