Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

All-solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells with high efficiency

Nature volume 485, pages 486–489 (2012)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Dye-sensitized solar cells based on titanium dioxide (TiO2) are promising low-cost alternatives to conventional solid-state photovoltaic devices based on materials such as Si, CdTe and CuIn1−xGa x Se2 (refs 1, 2). Despite offering relatively high conversion efficiencies for solar energy, typical dye-sensitized solar cells suffer from durability problems that result from their use of organic liquid electrolytes containing the iodide/tri-iodide redox couple, which causes serious problems such as electrode corrosion and electrolyte leakage3. Replacements for iodine-based liquid electrolytes have been extensively studied, but the efficiencies of the resulting devices remain low3,4,5,6,7,8,9. Here we show that the solution-processable p-type direct bandgap semiconductor CsSnI3 can be used for hole conduction in lieu of a liquid electrolyte. The resulting solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells consist of CsSnI2.95F0.05 doped with SnF2, nanoporous TiO2 and the dye N719, and show conversion efficiencies of up to 10.2 per cent (8.51 per cent with a mask). With a bandgap of 1.3 electronvolts, CsSnI3 enhances visible light absorption on the red side of the spectrum to outperform the typical dye-sensitized solar cells in this spectral region.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Figure 1: Crystal structure and optical and electrical transport properties of CsSnI3.
Figure 2: Energy levels of the components of the CsSnI 3 solid-state solar cell.
Figure 3: Cross-sectional electron microscopy image of a CsSnI 3 /TiO 2 cell on Si.
Figure 4: Optical response of the CsSnI 2.95 F 0.05 cell and a conventional Grätzel cell.
Figure 5: Photocurrent density–voltage ( J – V ) characteristics of the solar cell devices under irradiation of 100 mW cm –2 simulated AM 1.5 sunlight.

References

  1. Hagfeldt, A., Boschloo, G., Sun, L. C., Kloo, L. & Pettersson, H. Dye-sensitized solar cells. Chem. Rev. 110, 6595–6663 (2010)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Grätzel, M. Recent advances in sensitized mesoscopic solar cells. Acc. Chem. Res. 42, 1788–1798 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Yanagida, S., Yu, Y. H. & Manseki, K. Iodine/iodide-free dye-sensitized solar cells. Acc. Chem. Res. 42, 1827–1838 (2009)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Koh, J. K., Kim, J., Kim, B., Kim, J. H. & Kim, E. Highly efficient, iodine-free dye-sensitized solar cells with solid-state synthesis of conducting polymers. Adv. Mater. 23, 1641–1646 (2011)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Daeneke, T. et al. High-efficiency dye-sensitized solar cells with ferrocene-based electrolytes. Nature Chem. 3, 211–215 (2011)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Wang, M. K. et al. An organic redox electrolyte to rival triiodide/iodide in dye-sensitized solar cells. Nature Chem. 2, 385–389 (2010)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Liu, X. Z. et al. An efficient organic-dye-sensitized solar cell with in situ polymerized poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) as a hole-transporting material. Adv. Mater. 22, E150–E155 (2010)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Jiang, K. J. et al. Photovoltaics based on hybridization of effective dye-sensitized titanium oxide and hole-conductive polymer P3HT. Adv. Funct. Mater. 19, 2481–2485 (2009)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Bach, U. et al. Solid-state dye-sensitized mesoporous TiO2 solar cells with high photon-to-electron conversion efficiencies. Nature 395, 583–585 (1998)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Bisquert, J. Dilemmas of dye-sensitized solar cells. ChemPhysChem 12, 1633–1636 (2011)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Yella, A. et al. Porphyrin-sensitized solar cells with cobalt (II/III)-based redox electrolyte exceed 12 percent efficiency. Science 334, 629–634 (2011)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Cai, N. et al. An organic D-π-A dye for record efficiency solid-state sensitized heterojunction solar cells. Nano Lett. 11, 1452–1456 (2011)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  13. O'Regan, B., Lenzmann, F., Muis, R. & Wienke, J. A solid-state dye-sensitized solar cell fabricated with pressure-treated P25-TiO2 and CuSCN: analysis of pore filling and IV characteristics. Chem. Mater. 14, 5023–5029 (2002)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Bandara, J. & Weerasinghe, H. Solid-state dye-sensitized solar cell with p-type NiO as a hole collector. Sol. Energy Mater. Sol. Cells 85, 385–390 (2005)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Kroon, J. M. et al. Nanocrystalline dye-sensitized solar cells having maximum performance. Prog. Photovolt. Res. Appl. 15, 1–18 (2007)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Shum, K. et al. Synthesis and characterization of CsSnI3 thin films. Appl. Phys. Lett. 96, 221903 (2010)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  17. Grätzel, M. Photoelectrochemical cells. Nature 414, 338–344 (2001)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  18. Lee, B., Buchholz, D. B., Guo, P. J., Hwang, D. K. & Chang, R. P. H. Optimizing the performance of a plastic dye-sensitized solar cell. J. Phys. Chem. C 115, 9787–9796 (2011)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Lee, B. et al. Materials, interfaces, and photon confinement in dye-sensitized solar cells. J. Phys. Chem. B 114, 14582–14591 (2010)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Kojima, A., Teshima, K., Shirai, Y. & Miyasaka, T. Organometal halide perovskites as visible-light sensitizers for photovoltaic cells. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 131, 6050–6051 (2009)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge support for this collaborative research: NSF-DMR 0843962 for R.P.H.C.; DOE Energy Frontier Research Center, ANSER, DE-SC0001059 for B.H.L., J.H. and M.G.K.; the Initiative for Energy and Sustainability at Northwestern (ISEN) for I.C. Device testing and measurements were done in the ANSER Facilities and materials characterization was performed in the NSFMRSEC Facilities (DMR-1121262).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University, Evanston, 60208, Illinois, USA

    In Chung, Jiaqing He & Mercouri G. Kanatzidis

  2. Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, Evanston, 60208, Illinois, USA

    Byunghong Lee & Robert P. H. Chang

Authors
  1. In Chung
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Byunghong Lee
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Jiaqing He
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Robert P. H. Chang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Mercouri G. Kanatzidis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

I.C. and M.G.K. conceived and designed the experiments and prepared the manuscript. I.C. synthesized materials. R.P.H.C. and B.L. designed and fabricated the solar cells, I.C. and B.L. performed measurements. J.H. collected TEM data. I.C., B.L., R.P.H.C. and M.G.K. discussed the results and wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mercouri G. Kanatzidis.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Tables 1-3 and Supplementary Figures 1-4. (PDF 352 kb)

PowerPoint slides

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Chung, I., Lee, B., He, J. et al. All-solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells with high efficiency. Nature 485, 486–489 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11067

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11067

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing