A Study on Porosity Distribution in Nanoporous TiO_2 Photoelectrodes for Output Performance of Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Porosity as one of the crucial factors to film morphology affects the overall electrical current-voltage characteristics of dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC). We search for the short-circuit current density, the open-circuit voltage and the maximum power output as the main functional parameters of DSC closely related to porosity under different film thickness. The theoretical analyses show some exciting results. As porosity changes from 0.41 to 0.75, the short-circuit current density shows the optimal value when the film thickness is 8-10 μm. The open-circuit voltage presents different variation tendencies for the film thicknesses within 1-8 μm and within 10-30 μm. The porosity is near 0.41 and the film thickness is about 10 μm, DSC will have the maximum power output. The theoretical studies also illustrate that given a good porosity distribution, DSC can obtain an excellent short-circuit current characteristic, which agrees well with the experimental results reported in previous literature.