Reproducible manufacturing of dye‐sensitized solar cells on a semi‐automated baseline

A fully operational baseline consisting of dedicated equipment to process nanocrystalline dye-sensitized solar cell devices has been installed at ECN. This baseline focuses on the production of glass/glass devices with dimensions up to 10×10 cm2. Present power conversion efficiencies of 6% obtained for cell areas of 2ċ5 cm2 are successfully translated to 100 cm2 devices with an active area of 68 cm2 by application of identical cell components. The power conversion efficiency with respect to total area was 4%. Processing of a large number of devices in the baseline shows good results in terms of process reliability and yield. The overall yield for a series of 27 devices (10×10 cm2) was 96%, while 84% (22 of the remaining 26 devices) generated a cell efficiency within 7% deviation from the average value (4ċ3%). The reproducibility of the titanium dioxide (TiO2) colloid synthesis has been investigated. The deviation from the average efficiency (4ċ9%) of three batches of colloid was at most 3ċ2%. These results prove that complete device manufacturing of nc-DSC by a baseline process, starting with colloid synthesis is reproducible for surfaces up to 10×10 cm2. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.