Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have been considered as one of the most promising new generation solar cells.
Enormous research efforts have been invested to improve the efficiency of solar energy conversion which is determined
by the light harvesting efficiency, electron injection efficiency and undesirable electron lifetime. A simple, cheap and
trustable laser-induced photovoltage and photocurrent decay (LIPVCD) technique is adopted in this work in order to
determine the electron lifetime (τe) and electron transport (τtr) in DSSCs. In LIPVCD technique, DSSC is illuminated by
a small squared intensity-modulated laser beam. Time-based response of the DSSC is recorded using a transient digitized
oscilloscope for further analysis. Frequency-based response was also investigated in this work. The frequency-dependent
measurements turned out to be a powerful method to determine electron time constants in a fast, real-time fashion.
Measurements were carried out using a standard dye-sensitized solar cell, and results were in excellent agreement with
results obtained from traditional IMVSIMPS measurements. Measurements were also performed for a variety of DSSCs,
having various electrodes including TiO2 nanoparticles, TiO2 nanosheets with exposed {001} facets and ZnO vertically
aligned nanowires. Results will also be presented and discussed in this work.
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