Ultra-high aspect ratio copper nanowires as transparent conductive electrodes for dye sensitized solar cells

We report the synthesis of ultra-high aspect ratio copper nanowires (CuNW) and fabrication of CuNW-based transparent conductive electrodes (TCE) with high optical transmittance (>80%) and excellent sheet resistance ( R s V oc = 720 mV) and short-circuit current-density ( J sc = 0.96 mA/cm 2 ), which are comparable to what is obtained with an ITO-based DSSC fabricated with a similar process. Our CuNW-Ni based DSSCs exhibit a good open-circuit voltage ( V oc = 782 mV) and a decent short-circuit current ( J sc = 3.96 mA/cm 2 ), with roughly 1.5% optical-to-electrical conversion efficiency.