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Dye sensitised zinc oxide: aqueous electrolyte: platinum photocell

Nature volume 261, pages 402–403 (1976)Cite this article

Abstract

TITANIUM oxide photocells, which are photochemically stable and decompose water into hydrogen and oxygen1,2, have a low efficiency3 and their spectral response is mostly in the ultraviolet, where the Sun's output is low. Other semiconductors such as cadmium sulphide or gallium phosphide, having smaller band gaps, are destroyed by light and their photocurrents deteriorate rather rapidly4. Photocurrents in dye sensitised photocells composed of aqueous electrolyte solutions and various semiconductor electrodes have also been studied5–7. All results obtained so far show that the dye sensitised photo-currents are very small, ∼ 10−6–10−9 A cm−2, corresponding to a quantum efficiency ≲ 10−2. In this paper we report the successful construction of cells with a high power efficiency.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Engineering Science, Osaka University, Toyonaka, Osaka, 560, Japan

    H. TSUBOMURA, M. MATSUMURA, Y. NOMURA & T. AMAMIYA

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  1. H. TSUBOMURA
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  2. M. MATSUMURA
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  3. Y. NOMURA
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  4. T. AMAMIYA
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TSUBOMURA, H., MATSUMURA, M., NOMURA, Y. et al. Dye sensitised zinc oxide: aqueous electrolyte: platinum photocell. Nature 261, 402–403 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1038/261402a0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/261402a0

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