Invoking the frequency dependence in square modulated light intensity techniques for the measurement of electron time constants in dye-sensitized solar cells

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have been considered as one of the most promising new generation solar cells. Enormous research efforts have been invested to improve the efficiency of solar energy conversion which is determined by the light harvesting efficiency, electron injection efficiency and undesirable electron lifetime. A simple, cheap and trustable laser-induced photovoltage and photocurrent decay (LIPVCD) technique is adopted in this work in order to determine the electron lifetime (tau(e)) and electron transport (tau(tr)) in DSSCs. In LIPVCD technique, DSSC is illuminated by a small squared intensity-modulated laser beam. Time-based response of the DSSC is recorded using a transient digitized oscilloscope for further analysis. Frequency-based response was also investigated in this work. The frequency-dependent measurements turned out to be a powerful method to determine electron time constants in a fast, real-time fashion. Measurements were carried out using a standard dye-sensitized solar cell, and results were in excellent agreement with results obtained from traditional IMVS\IMPS measurements. Measurements were also performed for a variety of DSSCs, having various electrodes including TiO2 nanoparticles, TiO2 nanosheets with exposed {001} facets and ZnO vertically aligned nanowires. Results will also be presented and discussed in this work.