Development of New Device Structures for Dye Sensitised Solar Cells and their Applications

As the worlds demand for fossil fuels continues to grow more sources of energy need to be efficiently and sustainably harvested. Solar energy has the capability to generate large amounts of energy from renewable sources, which can be expected to sustain mankind from now and well into the future. The dye-sensitised solar cell (DSSC) is a photoelectrochemical solar cell that promises to provide cheap solar energy using non-toxic materials. However, the technology has proven difficult to scale-up and fabricate on a mass production scale. The back contact (BC) DSSC (BCDSSC) promises to overcome the limitations in DSSC scale-up as it enables the removal of the typically used glass electrodes, which are heavy, bulky and expensive and replaces them with flexible metallic electrodes. This fundamental change suddenly opens up the BCDSSC to a roll-to-roll manufacturing process and could result in a true low cost photovoltaic panel. A novel BCDSSC was developed by researchers at the University of Wollongong in 2011. The design and its implications for DSSCs are showcased in this study. The studies carried out in this thesis were designed to explore various aspects of the BCDSSC and examine how varying the cell parameters and materials affect device performance.