Interfacial Structures of Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell Working Electrodes

The transparent and low-cost nature of dye-sensitised solar cells (DSCs) affords them niche prospects for electricity-generating windows in buildings for energy-sustainable future cities. Despite their vast industrial potential, innovation is being held up by a lack of suitable dyes. Better dyes can only be realised if we can better understand how the dye...TiO2 interface of a working electrode in a DSC functions at the molecular level. To this end, we propose to exploit neutron contrast matching through selective deuteration to study the interfacial structure (dye adsorption modes, interdye separation and dye/TiO2 tilt angles) of self-assembled dyes on TiO2 surfaces to uncover the structural origin of the photovoltaic enhancement of the associated device. We will study five dye...TiO2 working electrodes, where the dye is one of five commercially-used Ru-basedorganometallic complexes.