Highly efficient ZnO/Au Schottky barrier dye-sensitized solar cells: Role of gold nanoparticles on the charge-transfer process

• Tanujjal Bora,
• Htet H. Kyaw,
• Soumik Sarkar,
• Samir K. Pal and
• Joydeep Dutta

Beilstein J. Nanotechnol. 2011, 2, 681–690, doi:10.3762/bjnano.2.73

• ZnO/Au-nanocomposite DSSCs, measured at 1 sun, AM 1.5 G illumination, (b) short-circuit photocurrent density of the bare ZnO-nanorod and ZnO/Au-nanocomposite DSSCs measured at different incident wavelengths and (c) optical absorptions of dye N719 in 0.1 mM KOH aqueous solution for bare ZnO-nanorod and

• ZnO/Au-nanocomposite photoelectrodes. The optical absorption was measured by removing the dye molecules from the respective photoelectrodes (size = 1 cm2) by dipping them in a 0.1 mM KOH aqueous solution (2 mL) for 5 min. Energy-band diagram depicting the possible electron-transfer path in the ZnO/Au