Efficiency Enhancement in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells by Three-Dimensional Photonic Crystals

Abstract

We have proposed a new dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) structure that employs three-dimensional (3D) photonic crystals (PCs) to enhance the light absorption and improve the power conversion efficiency (PCE) by using coherent scattering phenomena. All the DSSC structures with the 3D PC layer exhibited higher short-circuit current densities and higher PCE (10.8%) than those of traditional DSSCs (9.5%) because light that passed through the photoanode was diffracted, thereby making it possible to reuse it. The PCE is improved without affecting the delicate kinetic balance between the charge separation and recombination that is required to improve light-harvesting efficiency (LHE). © 2012 The Japan Society of Applied Physics.