At present there is considerable global concern in relation to environmental issues and future energy supplies, for
instance climate change (global warming) and the rapid depletion of fossil fuel resources. This trepidation has initiated a
more critical investigation into alternative and renewable sources of power such as geothermal, biomass, hydropower,
wind and solar energy. The immense dependence on electrical power in today's society has prompted the manufacturing
of devices such as photovoltaic (PV) cells to help alleviate and replace current electrical demands of the power grid. The
most popular and commercially available PV cells are silicon solar cells which have to date the greatest efficiencies for
PV cells. The drawback however is that the manufacturing of these cells is complex and costly due to the expense and
difficulty of producing and processing pure silicon. One relatively inexpensive alternative to silicon PV cells that we
are currently studying are dye-sensitised solar cells (DSSC or Grätzel Cells). DSSC are biomimetic solar cells which are
based on the process of photosynthesis. The SFI Strategic Research Centre for Solar Energy Conversion is a research
cluster based in Ireland formed with the express intention of bringing together industry and academia to produce
renewable energy solutions. Our specific research area is in DSSC and their electrical properties. We are currently
developing testing equipment for arrays of DSSC and developing optoelectronic models which todescribe the
performance and behaviour of DSSCs.
With growing energy and environmental concerns due to fossil fuel depletion and global warming there is an increasing
attention being attracted by alternative and/or renewable sources of power such as biomass, hydropower, geothermal,
wind and solar energy. In today's society there is a vast and in many cases not fully appreciated dependence on
electrical power for everyday life and therefore devices such as PV cells are of enormous importance. The more widely
used and commercially available silicon (semiconductor) based cells currently have the greatest efficiencies, however the
manufacturing of these cells is complex and costly due to the cost and difficulty of producing and processing pure
silicon. One new direction being explored is the development of dye-sensitised solar cells (DSSC). The SFI Strategic
Research Centre for Solar Energy Conversion is a new research cluster based in Ireland, formed with the express
intention of bringing together industry and academia to produce renewable energy solutions. Our specific area of
research is in biomimetic dye sensitised solar cells and their electrical properties. We are currently working to develop
test equipment, and optoelectronic models describing the performance and behaviors of dye-sensitised solar cells
(Grätzel Cells). In this paper we describe some of the background to our work and also some of our initial experimental
results. Based on these results we intend to characterise the
opto-electrical properties and bulk characteristics of simple
dye-sensitised solar cells and then to proceed to test new cell compositions.
KEYWORDS: Dye sensitized solar cells, Electrodes, Solar cells, Nanoparticles, Scanning electron microscopy, Transparent conductors, Biomimetics, Semiconductors, Electron transport, Titanium dioxide
The temporal response of a biomimetic dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) is critically linked to the intensity of the
incident light. When a DSSC is partially illuminated and the incoming light is of low intensity, the response time
of the cell is prolonged dramatically. In this report, the major components of the DSSC are investigated to find
the source and to provide a model of the driving mechanisms behind this delay. For low light level conditions,
only deep traps states of the TiO2 layer participate in electron transport resulting in a slow temporal response.
Increasing the illumination level thus increases the conductivity of the TiO2 electrode by filling these trap states
and increases the response time. This study shows a strong correlation between the light intensity, active area
and excitation wavelength on the temporal response time of a DSSC.
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