Highly Crystallized C-Doped Nickel Oxide Nanoparticles for p-type Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells with Record Open-Circuit Voltage Breaking 0.5 V

In this work, unique carbon-doped NiO nanostructure (denoted as C/NiO) was synthesized via a facile precipitation/reduction reaction, followed by a subsequent oxidation process. The successful introduction of carbon in NiO gave rise to multiple tailing of the physical and electronic characteristics, including morphology, crystallinity, and conductivity, and valence band edge position. The carbon-doped NiO-fabricated dye sensitized solar cells actively generated an unrivalled VOC of 0.50 V and also a significantly increased short-circuit current densities (JSC, 0.202 mA cm-2), leading to an overall efficiency of 0.053%. The improved of photovoltaic performance could be mainly attributed to the significantly enhanced charge transport property and regarded charge recombination occurred at the NiO/electrolyte interface. This work provides an extremely simple and effective strategy for incorporating nonmetal elements in semiconductor oxides with remarkably improved photovoltaic performance.