The next generation (G3) solar cells currently under development include: dye sensitized solar cells (DSSC), organic photovoltaic cells (OPV), quantum dot based cells (QDC), and hybrid cells. The long-term goal is cells having similar performance and durability as silicon cells but at much lower cost. To date most of the G3 solar devices have been constructed in a planar geometry with two parallel planar electrodes for charge extraction and the active layers are sandwiched in between for photon collection and photon to charge conversion. While this planar geometry is easy to fabricate, it is limited in efficiency due to the inherent large internal resistance when one tries to increase the thickness of the active layer to collect more photons. Attempts have been made to fabricate 3-D electrodes to overcome this barrier, but with limited success. In this talk we report a 3-D electrode design fabricated from ITO nanowires. Based on this new electrode design we present results of cell performance including DSSC and OPV cells. The relative increase in efficiencies of our 3-D cells is in the range of 15-25% over comparable 2-D geometry cells.

3D transparent conducting electrodes for advanced solar cell application

245th National Meeting (2013)

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