Effects of dye etching on the morphology and performance of ZnO nanorod dye-sensitized solar cells

Dye-sensitized solar cells based on electrodeposited ZnO nanorod arrays were fabricated and tested. Field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and X-ray powder diffraction (XRD) were used to identify the characters of ZnO nanorod arrays. The effects of dye etching on the morphology and performance of ZnO nanorod dye-sensitized solar cells were studied. It was found that the surfaces of ZnO nanorods were both etched by dye solutions, no matter N3 or N719. Compared with N3, N719 had a larger damage to the structure of ZnO nanorod photoanode, and the photoelectric conversion efficiency of cells decreased quickly with the sensitizing time increasing. In a certain range, the increasing length of ZnO nanorods can clearly improve the photoelectric conversion efficiency of cells.