Advanced Materials, Vol.21, No.41, 4087-4108, 2009
ZnO Nanostructures for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells
The Review focuses on recent development in the use of ZnO nanostructures for dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) applications. It is shown that carefully designed and fabricated nanostructured ZnO films are advantageous for use as a DSC photoelectrode as they offer larger surface areas than bulk film material, direct electron pathways, or effective light-scattering centers, and, when combined with TiO2, produce a core-shell structure that reduces the combination rate. The limitations of ZnO based DSCs are also discussed and several possible methods are proposed so as to expand the knowledge of ZnO to TiO2, motivating further improvement in the power-conversion efficiency of DSCs.