Monolithic Module Design and Behavior Improvement of Large Area Dye―sensitized Solar Cell

A new type of simple and monolithic large size dye―sensitized solar cell (DSC) module was designed with 85% aperture ratio (ratio of active area to total area), which was much higher than that of traditional series and parallel modules. The present module reduces the transfer resistance through the electroplated nickel grid on F―doped SnO2 (FTO) of anode as well as the nickel film on the FTO of counter electrode. The nickel grid and film are inside the cell and the separation of the cell is not required, which is useful to reduce the block part of light and beneficial to improve the harvest of light energy. The photoelectric conversion efficiency (η) with the active area of 510 mm2 reaches 3.00% (AM 1.5, 100 mW/cm2) and the fill factor (FF) is 0.594, meanwhile the η and FF of DSC without nickel layer modification is only 0.537% and 0.251. So it is obvious that this novel designed module is very effective in the performance improvement. The underlying mechanism is understood based on the measurement of the electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) as well as the quality check of nickel film by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X―ray diffraction (XRD).