Carbon nanotube film replacing silver in high-efficiency solid-state dye solar cells employing polymer hole conductor

A semitransparent, flexible single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) film was efficiently used in place of evaporated silver as the counter electrode of a poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) polymer-based solid-state dye solar cell (SSDSC): the solar-to-electrical energy conversion efficiency of the SWCNT-SSDSC was 4.8 % when it was 5.2 % for the Ag-SSDSC. The efficiency difference stemmed from a 0.1-V difference in the open-circuit voltage, whose reason was speculated to be related to the different recombination processes in the two types of SSDSCs.