Optimizing the performance of a plastic dye-sensitized solar cell

This article describes that a fluorine plasma treatment can increase the nanopore filling of a plastic electrolyte in a dye-sensitized solar cell to improve its performance. The one-step fluorine treatment can be used in a controlled way to increase the size of nanopores and nanochannels in the TiO₂ nanoparticle electrode and, at the same time, passivate the TiO₂ nanoparticle surfaces. In combination with the fluorine treatment, a sequential electrolyte filling process has been developed that allows the overall cell conversion efficiency to be increased by as much as 25%. The plastic-based electrolyte cells are found to be much more stable compared with their counterpart, the liquid electrolyte cells. Using this new process, and in combination with a photon confinement scheme, the overall cell efficiency can reach to about 9% using a masked frame measurement technique.