Abstract:
This work reports the influence of a Ru based dye (RuC) on enhancing the performance of nanocrystalline
titanium dioxide (TiO2)/Poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) solar cells. UV–Vis absorption spectra of TiO2/
P3HT and TiO2/RuC/P3HT films reveal that the absorption spectrum of TiO2/P3HT is broadened in the
UV region due to the addition of the RuC dye. With pumping laser at the wavelength corresponds to max imum absorption of P3HT, photoluminescence (PL) of TiO2/RuC/P3HT nanocomposite film was signifi cantly quenched in comparison with PL of TiO2/P3HT film which confirms the efficient exciton
dissociation in TiO2/RuC/P3HT. The insertion of the dye suppresses the dark current by two orders of
magnitude in the cells while extends external quantum efficiency (EQE) spectra and hence increases
the average short circuit current density (JSC) from 2.52 (±0.25) to 6.44 (±0.43) mA/cm 2
, resulting in
three fold power conversion efficiency (PCE) increment from 0.73 (±0.06) to 2.35 (±0.13) %, under
100 mW cm 1 (1 sun) illumination with AM 1.5 filter.
