Enhanced Charge Transfer Kinetics of Dye Sensitized Solar Cells Using a Nb2O5/ZnO Heterojunction Nanorod Photoanode

This paper presents a novel strategy for the design of efficient DSSCs using a Nb2O5 energy barrier layer on ZnO nanorods. A monoclinic Nb2O5 energy barrier layer can be deposited readily on a ZnO nanorod by dip-coating method. The optimized Nb2O5/ZnO photoanode exhibits eta, J(sc), V-oc, and FF values of 0.56%, 1.96 mA/cm(2), 0.58 V, and 56%, respectively, which is 30% better than those obtained using the ZnO photoanode. This can be attributed to a decrease in the probability of charge recombination and an increase in the electron collection efficiency due to the presence of a Nb2O5 energy barrier layer between ZnO and the photosensitizer.