Down-converting lanthanide doped TiO2 photoelectrodes for efficiency enhancement of dye-sensitized solar cells

Abstract Lanthanide (Ln3+) doped TiO2 down-conversion photoelectrodes (Ln3+ = Eu3+ and Sm3+ ions) are used to enhance the photovoltaic efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC). We report on achieving fill factors of 0.67 and 0.69 and efficiencies of 5.81% and 5.16% for Sm3+ and Eu3+, respectively. This is compared to the 4.23% efficiency for the undoped-titania photoelectrodes. This enhancement is probably due to the improved UV radiation harvesting via a down-conversion luminescence process by the lanthanide ions. The structure, optical and photoluminescence properties of the down-converting photoelectrode are characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) and room temperature photoluminescence excitation and emission spectrofluorimetric measurements.

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