Fiber-shaped all-solid state dye sensitized solar cell with remarkably enhanced performance via substrate surface engineering and TiO2 film modification

Highly efficient, flexible and large-size fiber-shaped solid state dye-sensitized solar cells (ss-DSSCs) were designed and fabricated by employment of annealed Ti wire as substrate and the subsequent polymer-templated TiO2 nanocrystalline film as photoanode. The work function measurement showed that the passivation titanium oxide layer, formed on the surface of the Ti wire substrate, reduced the Schottky barrier present at the anode interface, i.e. enhanced the charge collecting property of the substrates. The photovoltaic performance and EIS (electrical impedance spectroscopy) results reveal that the solar cells' performance can be further improved by adding PS (polystyrene) emulsion into the P25 colloid to act as a template, with the consequence that the pore filling of the electrolyte and the electron life time (τ) of TiO2 layers increase. All these aspects contribute to a high solar-to-electric conversion efficiency of 1.38%, which was much higher than the previous reported result (0.06%).