Dye sensitized solar cells based on zinc oxide bottle brush

In this work, we report on the synthesis of zinc oxide (ZnO) bottle brush; by a cost effective and low temperature aqueous chemical route on fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) coated conducting glass substrates. This bottle brush-like morphology enables 43% improvement in solar energy conversion efficiency as compared to the aligned nanorods (NRs). This improvement has been attributed to the more dye loading and effective light scattering within the photoelectrode. The light scattering increases the interaction between photons and dye molecules, hence increases the absorption. Also, the vertical NRs provide the direct path for electron transport for collection. The optical spectra reveal that the bottle brush-like structure has higher absorption as compared with the NRs. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.