Salen Zn complexes along with ZnO nanowires for dye sensitized solar cells

Abstract

Zn Schiff based complexes with high conductivity were synthesized with a facile approach at low cost. As dye sensitizers, Zn complexes have been attempted to construct dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), along with vertically aligned ZnO nanowires as a scaffold and an electron transporting layer for more dye load and better electron transporting pathways. The power conversion efficiency was examined by the I-V curve. Compared with the solar devices based on conventional TiO2 nanoparticles with an efficiency of 0.815%, the solar cells with ZnO nanowires outperform greatly, with a much better efficiency of 3.68%, which holds a great potential for the widespread applications in dye sensitized solar cells devices.