Dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) were fabricated using silver doped ZnO
films deposited on ITO glass by spin coating method. The crystalline nature
of ZnO films was analysed with XRD and SEM technique was used for
morphological studies. The XRD pattern confirmed the presence of single phase
hexagonal wurtzite ZnO structure, without the presence of secondary phase.
The crystallite size of ZnO decreased from 31 nm to 25 nm with increase in
doping to 1.5mol% of silver. The UV-visible transmission of the prepared ZnO
film was found to be 70-90% and it decreased with increase in doping to
0.5mol% Ag and increased in the film doped with 1.5mol% Ag. The band gap
values of the ZnO films with 0, 0.5 and 1.5mol% of silver, determined from
Tauc plot, were 3.269, 3.235 and 3.257 eV, respectively. The absorbance peaks
of the N719 dye loaded ZnO films were obtained at the wavelengths 310, 350
and 538 nm. The N719 dye loaded ZnO film doped with 0.5mol% Ag has the
highest absorbance in the visible region as compared to other two samples.
The fill factor values of the pure and ZnO doped with 0.5 and 1.5mol% Ag were
0.47, 0.48 and 0.42, respectively. The short circuit density values for ZnO,
ZnO:Ag0.5% and ZnO:Ag1.5% were found to be 1.50, 1.55 and 1.15 A?m/cm2,
respectively. The calculated photon to electron efficiencies for the ZnO
films with 0, 0.5 and 1.5mol% of silver were 0.42%, 0.44% and 0.27%,
respectively. Consequently future prospective of such type of dopants in ZnO
film based dye sensitized solar cells seems to be bright.
Performances of spin coated silver doped ZnO photoanode based dye sensitized solar cell
