Fabrication of textured substrates for dye-sensitized solar cells using polydimethylsiloxane nanoimprint lithography

Abstract

We proposed a fabrication of nanoimprinted textures on a front glass/transparent conductive oxide interface for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). These textures were fabricated through polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) nanoimprint lithography on organosilsesquioxane solution. The texture structures were estimated via optical simulation. Master molds were anodic aluminum oxide templates with nano-texture (N-Tx) and micro-nano double texture (D-Tx). Meanwhile, replicate molds used a hard PDMS. Fluorine-doped tin oxide and titanium dioxide were deposited on textured glass substrates to generate electrodes for DSSCs. Unlike the DSSCs without texture, textured DSSCs realized 11.4% (N-Tx) and 10% (D-Tx) improvement in conversion efficiency.