Metal oxide sandwiched dye-sensitized solar cells with enhanced power conversion efficiency fabricated by a facile and cost effective method

Abstract Developing efficient and cost effective photoanode and counter electro materials have been a persistent objective by a wide community for efficient, cost effective and stable dye-sensitized-solar cells (DSSCs). We have developed a unique and inexpensive way of co-electroplating-annealing method to synthesize metal oxides and employed it to prepare ZnO material on top of doctor bladed TiO 2 as photoanode and CuO on top of reduced graphene oxide (RGO) as counter electrode. By sandwiching these two electrodes with I - /I 3 redox couple in-between we have shown the improvement of photovoltaic properties with ZnO barrier layer using Pt or cost effective CuO/RGO counter electrodes (CEs). This paper provides a comprehensive guide to prepare those electrodes cost effectively and fabricate metal oxide sandwiched DSSCs providing up to 6.91% power conversion efficiency with 26.5% enhancement compared to the conventional DSSCs with TiO 2 photoanode and Pt CE under AM1.5 simulated solar light. This work also addresses the reduction of fabrication cost of the cells to make them more economically viable as it is