Silver nanowire-based transparent electrode as FTO replacement for dye-sensitized solar cell

Abstract

In this paper, we present a novel usage of silver nanowire-based transparent electrode instead of fluorine-doped tin oxide for a ZnO–TiO2 core–shell dye-sensitized solar cell. The Ag nanowire-based transparent electrode was fabricated with a simple coating method at room temperature and atmospheric pressure. This method potentially helps to reduce the production cost of dye-sensitized solar cell significantly by eliminating vacuum deposition processes for transparent electrodes and also enables the usage of various flexible substrates as a glass alternative. The Ag nanowire-based electrode is characterized using scanning electron microscope, four-point probe, and UV–Vis methods. With the short-circuit current density, Isc, of 4.3 × 10−4 A/cm2 and the open-circuit voltage, Voc, of 0.63 V, the performance of the dye-sensitized solar cell shows promising preliminary data for a low-temperature ZnO–TiO2 DSSC.