Absorption Spectra of Natural Dyes and Their Effect on Efficiency of ZnO Based Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Abstract

Natural dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) are one of the most promising devices for the solar energy conversion due to their low production cost and low environmental impact. The synthesis and performance study of Zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods based DSSC is reported in the present paper. ZnO nanorods were fabricated using sol-gel spin coating process and different types of DSSCs were fabricated using two different classes of natural dyes, xanthenes, anthocyanins and a mixed-dye with equal proportion mixture of xanthenes and anthocyanins. The ultravioletvisible (UV-Vis.) absorbance spectra were compared with performances of the cells. Efficiency of fabricated cells and cell characteristics were found to be related with absorption spectra of dyes. Nepal Journal of Science and Technology Vol. 13, No. 1 (2012) 179-185 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/njst.v13i1.7457