Abstract

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have received much attention as the promising candidates for low-cost and large-area photovoltaic applications. Hollow structures of ZnO and SnO2 with micron sized features are particularly attractive as the photoanodes for dye-sensitized solar cells due to their high surface area to adsorb dye molecules, relatively large size for scattering incident light. In this work, we report a sacrificial template method to fabricate multiple-shelled SnO2 and ZnO hollow microspheres with close double shells in the exterior by using the carbonaceous microspheres as the templates. We successfully realize accurate control over the structure of the final products, which is characteristic of multi-shelled hollow microspheres with the close double shells in the exterior. The quintuple-shelled SnO2 and quadruple-shelled ZnO hollow microspheres ased DSS Cs exhibit a high energy conversion efficiency of 7.18% (with TiCl4 treatment) and 5.6% respectively. This work may open up new opportunities for fabricating high performance DSS Cs based on structural design and manipulation of the hollow microspheres.

Keywords: SnO2, ZnO, multi-shelled hollow microspheres, dye-sensitized solar cells

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