Development of High Efficiency Low-cost Bionic Dye-sensitized Solar Cells

Dye-sensitized solar cell has been treated as the most promising alternative to traditional silicon-based solar cell mainly due to its low manufacture cost, easy fabrication process and relatively high conversion efficiency. In this project by utilizing the bionic idea, we developed new structures of the dye-sensitized solar cells which could fully utilize spatial sunlight. Combined with the in-situ growth technique, 1D nano-materials such as nanowires or nanotubes were directly synthesized from the substrate of the device to increase the charge collection efficiency. Compared with the flat-type device, the bionic dye-sensitized solar cell showed superior photovoltaic parameters even under dim light.