Nanoforest of Hydrothermally Grown Hierarchical ZnO Nanowires for a High Efficiency Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell

In this paper, in order to increase the power conversion efficiency we demonstrated the selective growth of “nanoforest” composed of high density, long branched “treelike” multigeneration hierarchical ZnO nanowire photoanodes. The overall light-conversion efficiency of the branched ZnO nanowire DSSC...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Nano letters Vol. 11; no. 2; pp. 666 - 671
Main Authors:	Ko, Seung Hwan, Lee, Daeho, Kang, Hyun Wook, Nam, Koo Hyun, Yeo, Joon Yeob, Hong, Suk Joon, Grigoropoulos, Costas P, Sung, Hyung Jin
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Washington, DC American Chemical Society 09-02-2011
Subjects:	Applied sciences Chemical synthesis methods Coloring Agents - chemistry Cross-disciplinary physics: materials science; rheology Crystallization - methods Electric Power Supplies Energy Energy Transfer Equipment Design Equipment Failure Analysis Exact sciences and technology Materials science Methods of nanofabrication Nanocrystalline materials Nanoscale materials and structures: fabrication and characterization Nanostructures - chemistry Nanostructures - ultrastructure Nanotechnology - instrumentation Natural energy Particle Size Photovoltaic conversion Physics Quantum wires Solar cells. Photoelectrochemical cells Solar Energy Zinc Oxide - chemistry nanoforest Zinc oxide nanowire hierarchical growth branched structure dye-sensitized solar cell Solar cells Selective growth Hydrothermal synthesis Organic dye High density Growth mechanism Crystal seeds Zinc oxide Nanowires Surface area Polymers Nanostructured materials
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Summary:	In this paper, in order to increase the power conversion efficiency we demonstrated the selective growth of “nanoforest” composed of high density, long branched “treelike” multigeneration hierarchical ZnO nanowire photoanodes. The overall light-conversion efficiency of the branched ZnO nanowire DSSCs was almost 5 times higher than the efficiency of DSSCs constructed by upstanding ZnO nanowires. The efficiency increase is due to greatly enhanced surface area for higher dye loading and light harvesting, and also due to reduced charge recombination by providing direct conduction pathways along the crystalline ZnO “nanotree” multi generation branches. We performed a parametric study to determine optimum hierarchical ZnO nanowire photoanodes through the combination of both length-wise growth and branched growth processes. The novel selective hierarchical growth approach represents a low cost, all solution processed hydrothermal method that yields complex hierarchical ZnO nanowire photoanodes by utilizing a simple engineering of seed particles and capping polymer.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23
ISSN:	1530-6984 1530-6992
DOI:	10.1021/nl1037962