Ahmad Jamekhorshid

Dye-sensitized solar cells are the third generation of solar cells which are more favorable than other generations due to the low manufacturing cost, simple production methods and acceptable efficiency. Semi-conductor film is one of the most important parts of dye-sensitized solar cell which final efficiency of this cell is extremely dependent on the performance of this part. Therefore, using suitable materials along whit suitable structure in semi-conductor film is specially important. In this study, two pastes containing titanium dioxide and zinc oxide composite in two structures of nanofiber and nanoparticle have been used to form semi-conductor film. According to the results, when the paste based on nanofiber is used, the passing current through the cell is more than the paste based on nanoparticle. Because the nanofiber, as a one-dimentional nanostructure, has the ability to provide a direct path way for electrons to flow. On the other hand, it was observed which dye molecules absorbtion on the paste based on nanoparticle is more than the paste based on nanofiber due to higher surface area of nanoparticles. Fabricated cells by both mentioned nanostructured pastes were investigated using two artificial and natural pigments including N719 and java plum fruit. According to the evaluations, compared to the artificial pigment in both nanostructures of prepared pastes, the passing current through the cell is reduced by more than 50% while extracted pigment from java plum is used. The heighest yield obtained in this study is for fabricated cell using TiO2/ZnO nanofiber and N719 dye, which yielded 2.17%.