• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.05a
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• pp.422-424
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• 2008

A serious problem of the 21st century is the supply of energy resources. Reserves of fossil fuels are facing depletion: renewable energy resources must be developed in this era. Dye sensitizedsolar cells(DSC) have been very economical and easy method to convert solar energy to electricity. DSC can reach low costs in future outdoor power applications. However, to commercialize the DSC, there are still many shortages to overcome. When the DSC is commercialized in the near future, the productivity is an important factor. In the process of soaking in a dye, it usually takes $12\sim24$ hours. In this study, we varied the dye coloring temperature from $0^{\circ}C$ to $60^{\circ}C$. At the temperature of $40^{\circ}C$, DSC cell showed the best performance. We also expect the reduction of the time soaking in a dye. Counter electrode surface of DSC is deposited by RF magnetron sputtering under the conditions of Ar $2.8{\times}10^{-3}$ torr, RF power of 120W and substrate temperature of $100^{\circ}C$.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.57 no.10
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• pp.1802-1806
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• 2008

Dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) based on some advantages such as transparency, cheap materials and anti-sensibility for an anlge of incidence has been expected to capture most of solar cell market in the near future. To practical use of DSC, researches on high efficiency as well as upscaling are necessary. In this study, we tried to insert the grid electrode in DSC and scribe transparent conducting oxide (TCO) using Nd:YAG laser. The grid electrode makes the electron movement improved and diffusional movement minimized. Consequently, the efficiency of DSC was increased by reducing electron loss and the surface resistance of TCO. The grid electrode was made using Ag target by radio frequency sputtering. And the scribed surface was confirmed by taking a scanning electron microscopy photos. As the result, grid cell had improved photocurrent and fill factor as compared with the conventional cell. And the efficiency was increased about 1% by enhanced photocurrent and fill factor.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.131-133
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• 2008

A serious problem of the 21st century is the supply of energy resources. Reserves of fossil fuels are facing depletion: renewable energy resources must be developed in this era. Dye sensitized solar cell (DSC) has been very economical and easy method to convert solar energy to electricity. Recently a novel tandem cell structure is proposed to improve photocurrent of DSC. To fabricated a tandem cell, the mesh structure of counter electrode is essential for the improvement in transmittance. In this study, we conducted the experiment to get the characteristic of DSC with mesh counter electrode. Under the standard test condition (AM 1.5, 100mW/$cm^2$), we obtained the maximum efficiency of 3.41% and the transmittance of 72% in the DSC with mesh counter electrode.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.18 no.4
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• pp.357-362
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• 2005

The tandem solar cell composed of a dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) and a thermoelectric generator (TEG) was designed. In such new cell, the characteristics of DSC and TEG were investigated. DSC uses the wavelength range of 380∼750 nm and has the maximum efficiency of below 10 ％. If the solar light transmitted through DSC can be converted to heat energy, TEG can generate electric energy using this heat energy. By this means, it is possible to utilize most of solar energy in the wavelength range of 350∼3000 nm for electric generation and it can be expected to obtain higher solar energy conversion efficiency exceeding the known limit of maximum efficiency. For this purpose we suggest the tandem solar cell constructed with DSC and TEG. In this structure, DSC has a carbon nanotube film as a counter electrode of DSC in order to collect the solar light and convert it to heat energy. We measured the I-V characteristics of DSC and TEG, assembled to the tandem cell. As a result, it was shown that DSC with carbon nanotube and TEG had the efficiency of 9.1 ％ and 6.2 ％, respectively. From this results, it is expected that the tandem solar cell of the new design has the possibility of enhanced conversion efficiency to exceed above 15 ％.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.05a
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• pp.419-421
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• 2008

Sputter deposition on a Pt counter electrode was studied using RF plasma as the improvement of conversion efficiency for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSC). The effects of the sputtering thickness and incident angle on a Pt counter electrode for DSC was scrutinized. We conducted the experiment to get the optimal sputtering time for the performance of the DSC. Under the sputtering time condition of 120 seconds, we varied the incident angles of substrate from $0^{\circ}$ to $60^{\circ}$. Under standard test condition (AM 1.5, 100mW/$cm^2$), we obtained the maximum efficiency of 4.61% at the incident angle of $40^{\circ}$ with an active cell area of $1cm^2$.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.58 no.11
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• pp.2214-2218
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• 2009

Dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) has been considered as a possible alternative to current silicon based p-n junction photovoltaic devices due to its advantages of high efficiency, simple fabrication process and low production cost. Numerous researches for high efficient DSC in the various fields are under way even now. Among them, the compact layer, which prevents the back electron transfer between transparent conductive oxides and the redox electrolyte, is fabricated by various methods such as a ZnO dip-coating, $TiCl_4$ dip-coating, and Ti sputtering. In this study, we tried to fabricate the $TiO_2$ compact layer by the spin-coating method using aqueous $TiCl_4$ solution. The effect of the spin-coating method was checked as compared with conventional dip-coating method. As a result, DSC with a spin-coated compact layer had 33.4% and 6% better efficiency than standard DSC and DSC with a dip-coated compact layer.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.323-328
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• 2004

Down-conversion of Eu$^{3+}$ doped LiGdF$_4$ (LGF) for increasing the cell efficiency on dye-sensitized Ti $O_2$ solar cells has been studied. The dye sensitized solar cell (DSC) consisting of mesoporous Ti $O_2$ electrode deposited on transparent substrate, an electrolyte containing I$^{[-10]}$ /I$_3$$^{[-10]}$ redox couple, and Pt counter electrode is a promising alternative to the inorganic solar cell. The structure of DSC is basically a sandwich type, viz., FTO glass/Ru-red dye-absorbed Ti $O_2$/iodine electrolyte/sputtered Pt/FTO glass. The cell without down converter had open circuit potential of approximately 0.66 Volt, the short circuit photocurrent density of 1.632 mA/$\textrm{cm}^2$, and fill factor of about 50 ％ at the excitation wavelength of 550 nm. In addition, 5.6 mW/$\textrm{cm}^2$ incident light intensity beam was used as a light source. From this result, the calculated monochromatic efficiency at the wavelength of 550 nm of this cell was about 9.62 ％. The incident photon to current conversion efficiency (IPCE) of N3 used as a dye in this work is about 80 ％ at around 590 nm and 610 nm, which is the emission spectrum of Eu$^{3+}$ doped LGF, results in efficiency increasing of DSC.C.

• Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.146-150
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• 2010

A new type of dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) based on a porous type Ti electrode without using a transparent conductive oxide (TCO) layer is fabricated for low-cost high-efficient solar cell application. The TCO-free DSC is composed of a glass substrate/dye-sensitized $TiO_2$ nanoparticle/porous Ti layer/electrolyte/Pt sputtered counter electrode. The porous Ti electrode (~350 nm thickness) with high conductivity can collect electrons from the $TiO_2$ layer and allows the ionic diffusion of $I^-/I_3{^-}$ through the hole. The vacuum annealing treatment is important with respect to the interfacial necking between the metal Ti and porous $TiO_2$ layer. The efficiency of the prepared TCO-free DSC sample is about 3.5% (ff: 0.48, $V_{oc}$: 0.64V, $J_{sc}$: 11.14 mA/$cm^2$).

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.128-130
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• 2008

One of methods to increase the efficiency of a dye-sensitized solar cell(DSC) is the effective usage of the incident light. It can be controlled by using a light scattering layer. The light scattering effect makes that the optical path length of incident light to DSC increases. And then, the photocurrent and the efficiency is increased because of the increase of dye adsorption and the abundant amount of the light. In this study, we apply the light scattering layer to DSC by using two $TiO_2$ pastes that have different particle sizes. As a result, the photocurrent increases and the total efficiency is also increases in the case of using large-sized $TiO_2$ particle as the light scattering layer.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.61 no.5
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• pp.705-710
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• 2012

An anti-reflection layer (AR) is used in the solar cell to improve the amount of the irradiated light, resulting in the improvement of the performance of the solar cell. In this study, the zinc oxide (ZnO) AR is applied to the dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) by using zinc nitrate solution. The conditions such as solution concentration and sintering temperature for fabricating the ZnO AR are changed to optimize the performance of the AR. As a result, the best performance is shown when the zinc nitrate solution with 100mM concentration is used and the sintering temperature is $600^{\circ}C$. And then, the ZnO AR formed with these optimal conditions is applied to the DSC. Consequently, a DSC with a ZnO AR had an increased current density up to 13.86$mA/cm^2$ and an enhanced efficiency of 6.32%.