Popcorn-ball design doubles efficiency of dye-sensitized s...(ng larger grains in with the small parti...)

Date:4/10/2008

ng larger grains in with the small particles to scatter the light, but have little success in boosting efficiency. The UW group instead made only very tiny grains, about 15 nanometers across. (Lining up 3,500 grains end to end would equal the width of a human hair.) Then they clumped these into larger agglomerations, about 300 nanometers across. The larger balls scatter incoming rays and force the light to travel a longer distance within the solar cell. The balls' complex internal structure, meanwhile, creates a surface area of about 1,000 square feet for each gram of material. This internal surface is coated with a dye that captures the light.

The researchers expected some improvement in the performance but what they saw exceeded their hopes.

"We did not expect the doubling," Cao said. "It was a happy surprise."

The overall efficiency was 2.4 percent using only small particles, which is the highest efficiency achieved for this material. With the popcorn-ball design, results presented today at the conference show an efficiency of 6.2 percent, more than double the previous performance.

"The most significant finding is the amount of increase using this unique approach," Cao said.

The experiments were performed using zinc oxide, which is less stable chemically than the more commonly used titanium oxide but easier to work with.

"We first wanted to prove the concept in an easier material. Now we are working on transferring this concept to titanium oxide," Cao said. Titanium oxide based dye-sensitized solar cells are now at 11 percent maximum efficiency. Cao hopes his strategy could push dye-sensitized solar cells' efficiency significantly over that threshold.

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Contact: Hannah Hickey hickeyh@u.washington.edu 206-543-2580 University of Washington Source:Eurekalert

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