Luminescent Spectral Conversion to Improve the Performance of Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Zahra Hosseini*, Nima Taghavinia, Wei-Guang Diau

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

16 Scopus citations

Abstract

Relative to the broadband solar spectrum, a narrow range of spectral absorption of photovoltaic (PV) devices is considered an important determinant that the efficiency of light harvesting of these devices is less than unity. Having the narrowest spectral response to solar radiation among all PV devices, dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) suffer severely from this loss. Luminescent spectral conversion provides a mechanism to manipulate and to adapt the incident solar spectrum by converting, through photoluminescence, the energies of solar photons into those that are more effectively captured by a PV device. This mechanism is particularly helpful for DSSCs because there is much flexibility in both the choice of the light-harvesting materials and the architecture of the DSSC. Here we review and discuss recent advances in the field of luminescent spectral conversion for DSSCs. The focus is on the architectural design of DSSCs, and the complications, advantages and new functionalities offered by each of their configurations are discussed. The loss mechanisms are examined and important parameters governing the spectral conversion mechanism of a DSSC are introduced.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)3292-3308
Number of pages17
JournalChemPhysChem
Volume18
Issue number23
DOIs
StatePublished - 6 Dec 2017

Keywords

  • dye-sensitized solar cells
  • light harvesting
  • luminescence
  • rare earth elements
  • spectral conversion

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