• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.124-127
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• 2008

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) have been proposed as a substitute for overcoming the limitation of Si solar cells because DSC has the various applications using advantages of DSC such as low cost, transparency and flexibility. Although some people point out low efficiency of DSC as the important problem at present, general views say that actually cumulative power is not insufficient as compared with Si solar cell. Therefore, we analyzed the characteristics of both cells according to the change of incident angle in this study. The insensibility about the incident angle has more developable time. Finally, DSC is able to fill a shortage of power caused from low efficiency of DSC for same time by developing during impossible time to develop in Si solar cell. As a result, DSC has 75% and 210% cumulative power of Si solar cell in summer and winter under the standard sunshine duration.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2006.06a
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• pp.354-355
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• 2006

We manufactured photoelectrode of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSC) by using three methods such as squeeze method, spray method, and combination method (squeeze method first, spray method second). We examined how the morphology of an electrode's surface, the pore between particles, and condensation have an effect on an open-circuit voltage, photocurrent, fill factor, and energy conversion efficiency. Open-circuit voltage of dye-sensitized solar cells manufactured by using three methods is about 0.66V when the photoelectrode of the three DSCs is about $5{\mu}m$ thick. Photocurrent and fill factor and conversion efficiency of DSC manufactured by using squeeze method is 18.5 and 34 and 7.8, respectively. Photocurrent and fill factor and conversion efficiency of DSC manufactured by using spray method is 3.62 and 62 and 2.8, respectively. Photocurrent and fill factor and conversion efficiency of DSC manufactured by using combination method is 10.7 and 46 and 5.9, respectively. In conclusion, we find that the combination method is better than the other two methods in such respects as energy conversion efficiency and fill factor.

• Current Photovoltaic Research
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• v.3 no.3
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• pp.91-96
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• 2015

Optical modeling and characterization of transparent dye-sensitized solar cells (DSC) are presented to design and estimate DSC devices numerically. In order to model the inhomogeneous active layer of DSC, the porous structure of titanium oxide ($TiO_2$) and dye mixture, we prepared films consisting of layer by layer of the DSC's basic materials sequentially, and characterized the optical parameters of the films with the effective refractive index, which was extracted from the transmittance and reflectance measurements in ultra violet to near infra-red range. By using the effective refractive index, we made the optical model for DSC, and demonstrated that the optical model based on effective refractive index can be used to design and evaluate the performance of transparent-type DSC modules.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2007.06a
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• pp.305-308
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• 2007

The field of dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) is being researched actively at present. Because DSC has several advantages to pass the limits of Si solar cells such as a low manufacturing expense, a simple manufacturing process and its transparency. A lot of researches are underway about materials and processes in the field of dye-sensitized solar cell but its structure has been fixed up as the sandwich structure that both edges are used as positive and negative terminals. But the structure as of present is a factor of decreasing efficiency because the more electrons are recombined the further distance from terminal, considering about the characteristic of dye-sensitized solar cell that electrons generated inside cell are moved by diffusion. In this study, we made experiment on expanding the terminal to shorten internal moving distance of electron and compared the results according to the variation of active area to find out the effect of this trial. As a result, we achieved about 15.5% improvement of maximum power and 0.5% improvement of efficiency from terminal-expanded dye-sensitized solar cell of $2cm^{2}$ active area and concluded that the increasing rate of efficiency is raised as the active area becomes wider.

• 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 $1cm^2$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.484.2-484.2
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• 2014

There are many efforts to improving the power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs). Although DSCs have a low production cost, their low PCE and low thermal stability have limited commercial applications. This study describes the preparation of a novel multifunctional polymer gel electrolyte in which a cross-linking polymerization reaction is used to encapsulate $TiO_2$ nanoparticles toward improving the power conversion efficiency and long-term stability of a quasi-solid state DSC. A series of liquid junction dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) was fabricated based on polymer membrane encapsulated dye-sensitized $TiO_2$ nanoparticles, prepared using a surface-induced cross-linking polymerization reaction, to investigate the dependence of the solar cell performance on the encapsulating membrane layer thickness. The ion conductivity decreased as the membrane thickness increased; however, the long term-stability of the devices improved with increasing membrane thickness. Nanoparticles encapsulated in a thick membrane (ca. 37 nm), obtained using a 90 min polymerization time, exhibited excellent pore filling among $TiO_2$ particles. This nanoparticle layer was used to fabricate a thin-layered, quasi-solid state DSC. The thick membrane prevented short-circuit paths from forming between the counter and the $TiO_2$ electrode, thereby reducing the minimum necessary electrode separation distance. The quasi-solid state DSC yielded a high power conversion efficiency (7.6/8.1%) and excellent stability during heating at $65^{\circ}C$ over 30 days. These performance characteristics were superior to those obtained from a conventional DSC (7.5/3.5%) prepared using a $TiO_2$ active layer with the same thickness. The reduced electrode separation distance shortened the charge transport pathways, which compensated for the reduced ion conductivity in the polymer gel electrolyte. Excellent pore filling on the $TiO_2$ particles minimized the exposure of the dye to the liquid and reduced dye detachment.

• 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.56 no.1
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• pp.123-127
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• 2007

Up sizing of dye-sensitized solar cell(DSC) is the important technology to bring about commercialization of DSC. Several studies to obtain a stable large area DSC have been investigated in overseas laboratories, but have been hardly done in our country. In this study, up sizing technology of dye sensitized solar cells(DSCs) was investigated. We investigated low dark current materials for the current collecting grid. From the result, a new DSC module with metal grid was designed, and fabricated. For a new interconnection, both working and counter electrodes are alternately coupled on 10[cm]$\times$7[cm] substrate. We have achieved 68% of fill factor and photoelectric conversion efficiency of around 2.6% as the best results of new designed DSC structure.

• 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/$cm^2$).

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.58 no.11
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• pp.2223-2228
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• 2009

Dye sensitized solar cells(DSCs) 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 such a low efficiency in a large size DSC. In this study, DSCs were fabricated by an electrospray coating method for the $TiO_2$ thin film. They were compared with DSCs prepared by conventional coating methods. We conducted an experiment to obtain the optimized parameters of voltage, flow rate, incident angle and distance in the electrospray method. After we fabricated $TiO_2$ film using that way, we investigated the characteristics of DSC through I-V Curve, SEM and EIS. This novel method shows stable performance with an energy conversion efficiency of 3.44 % under 1 sun illumination (AM 1, $P_{in}$ of $100\;mW/cm^2$).