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EditorialNanostructured Solar Cells

Pushpa Raj Pudasaini,1,2 Sanjay K. Srivastava,3 Yaohui Zhan,4

Francisco Ruiz-Zepeda,5 and Bill Pandit6

1Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA2Center for Nanophase Materials Science, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, USA3Inorganic Photovoltaic Devices Group, CSIR-National Physical Laboratory, Dr. K.S. Krishnan Marg, New Delhi 110012, India4School of Optoelectronic Information Science and Engineering, Soochow University, No. 1, Shizi Street, Suzhou,Jiangsu 215006, China5Department for Materials Chemistry, National Institute of Chemistry, Hajdrihova 19, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia6Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

Correspondence should be addressed to Pushpa Raj Pudasaini; [email protected]

Received 15 May 2017; Accepted 15 May 2017; Published 12 November 2017

Copyright © 2017 Pushpa Raj Pudasaini et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative CommonsAttribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the originalwork is properly cited.

Nanostructured materials, such as nanowires, nanorods, andquantum dot structures, are being studied and developed forsolar cell applications since they have enabled the fabricationof high efficient and low-cost devices. It is believed that thereare mainly two approaches to reduce the cost per kilowatt-hour of electrical energy generated by solar cell devices.Firstly, one can aim to increase the efficiency of the device,usually by pursuing new cell designs that can take full advan-tage of high-quality absorber materials. Secondly, one canpursue cost reductions while maintaining the efficiency ofthe device, often done by exploring novel manufacturingapproaches but also sometimes with new cell designs andperhaps by exploiting lower-quality, cost attractive materialsand processes. From either perspective, nanostructuring ofinorganic solar cells offers the possibility of reducing the costof photovoltaics by allowing smaller amounts of lower-gradephotovoltaic semiconductor materials to be used or improv-ing the photoelectric conversion efficiency by making morelight and charge carriers to be harvested. The device physics,including carrier/exciton separation, charge extraction, andrecombination, is strongly influenced by the nanostructure.Research in various fabrication methods and their influenceon the device physics has also provided insight on how toincrease efficiency limits. Additionally, the synthesis of solarcells by solution-based methods or fabrication pathways

using less traditional, abundant materials is identified as apromising route to wide-scale photovoltaic electricity gener-ation. Nanostructured solar cell geometries are highlighted asessential in this approach.

The use of dyes as sensitizers in solar cells has also beenthe target of current active research, due to the low produc-tion cost, adaptable optical properties, and high perfor-mance. However, several issues are still to be solvedregarding long-term stability, and an expected improvementin the conversion efficiency is also needed so they can besuitable for large-scale applications.

This special issue selects 7 papers about differentnanostructured solar cells. It consists of 4 papers ondye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) addressing its varietyof material properties such as dyes, electrodes, andothers, the photoelectric properties, and the ageing effectby the impedance spectroscopic method. The issue alsocovers perovskite solar cells, n-Si/PEDOT:PSS organic-inorganic heterojunction-based hybrid solar cells, andnanostructured ultrathin silicon solar cells covering avariety of related aspects towards achieving efficientand stable nanostructured PV devices.

For example, P. Bhatt et al. discussed the effect of ageingon the performance of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs).Based on a detailed degradation study of DSC by

HindawiInternational Journal of PhotoenergyVolume 2017, Article ID 1289349, 2 pageshttps://doi.org/10.1155/2017/1289349

https://doi.org/10.1155/2017/1289349

electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), they sug-gested that the DSC should be used under low illuminationconditions and around room temperature for a longer life.

Y. Chen et al. demonstrated a new approach to design,simulate, and fabricate whole-wafer nanostructures on adielectric layer on a thin c-Si solar cell for effective light trap-ping. By employing periodic nanostructured dielectric arrayson 40μm thin c-Si, they could suppress the reflection lossbelow 5% over a wide spectra and angular range and demon-strated 32% improvement in short circuit current and 44%relative improvement in energy conversion efficiency in acrystalline silicon solar cell with only a 2.9μm ultrathinabsorber layer.

C. Lyons et al. synthesized a new chromophore containinga coplanar dihexyl-substituted dithienosilole (CL1) and dis-played an energy conversion efficiency of 6.90% under AM1.5 sunlight irradiation in dye-sensitized solar cells. Similar fillfactor and open-circuit voltage are presented for a new syn-thesizer with N719. The charge transfer resistances arepresented comparable, indicative of similar recombinationrates by the oxidised form of the redox couple. Using time-dependent density functional theory, studies are performedto ascertain the absorption spectrum of the dye and assessthe contribution of various transitions to optical excitation.Good agreements are reported between experimental andcalculated results.

While X. Sun et al. reported that an increase in the poros-ity of the mesoporous TiO2 (mp-TiO2) film leads to animprovement in the performance of the perovskite solar cells(PSCs), P. Ren et al. employed phloxine B and bromophenolblue as the sensitizers of dye-sensitized solar cells, and thedevices were characterized using UV-Vis spectra, FT-IRspectra, fluorescence spectra, and current-voltage character-istics. K. Moolsarn et al. employed carbonized hair/PED-OT:PSS composites (CxP) with varied carbon contentsfrom x=0.2 to 0.8 g, as counter electrode (CE) for a dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC). And last but not least, C. Zhanget al. demonstrated that annealing temperature has a greatinfluence on the PEDOT:PSS material properties and thecorresponding device performance. By optimizing theannealing temperature, the conductivity of the PEDOT:PSSfilm doped with Triton X-100 and EG could be enhancedby a factor of more than three orders.

The objective is to provide an opportunity for interdisci-plinary researchers to share their latest research achieve-ments in nanostructured solar cells and let the potentialreaders learn some insightful concepts in this exciting fieldof photovoltaic energy concepts. We hope this researchprogress can inspire more advanced ideas for the futuredevelopment of such novel concepts of PV devices. Wewould like to extend our heartiest gratitude to all the authorswho submitted their work for consideration in our specialissue and to the reviewers for their critical feedback.

Pushpa Raj PudasainiSanjay K. Srivastava

Yaohui ZhanFrancisco Ruiz-Zepeda

Bill Pandit

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