Improved photocurrents for p-type dye-sensitized solar cells using nano-structured nickel(II) oxide microballs

Improved photocurrents for p-type dye-sensitized solar cells using nano-structured nickel(ii) oxide microballs†

Satvasheel Powar,^a Qiang Wu,^b Martin Weidelener,^c Andrew Nattestad,‡^d Zheng Hu,^b Amaresh Mishra,^c Peter Bäuerle,^c Leone Spiccia,^a Yi-Bing Cheng^d and Udo Bach*^def

Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

^a School of Chemistry, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, 3800 Australia

^b Key Lab of Mesoscopic Chemistry of MOE, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China

^c Institute for Organic Chemistry II and Advanced Materials, University of Ulm, Albert-Einstein-Allee 11, 89081 Ulm, Germany

^d Department of Materials Engineering, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, 3800 Australia
E-mail: udo.bach@monash.edu

^e Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, Materials Science and Engineering, Clayton South, Victoria 3169, Australia

^f Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication, 151 Wellington Road, Clayton, VIC 3168, Australia

Abstract

Highly crystalline nanostructured nickel(II) oxide microballs (NiO-μBs) were developed for use in p-type dye-sensitized solar cells (p-DSC). Their high specific surface area and favorable optical properties yielded unprecedented photocurrent densities of 7.0 mA cm⁻² under simulated sunlight (AM1.5; 1000 W m⁻²) and incident photon to charge carrier conversion efficiencies of 74% when applied in p-DSCs. This is an important step towards matching the performance of p-DSCs with their n-type counterparts for future tandem applications.