Plasmonic enhancement as selective scattering of gold nanoparticles based dye sensitized solar cells

Abstract Light harvesting process using plasmonic nanoparticles has been proven to be helpful to enhance light absorption in dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). In this work, gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) were utilized as scattering stimuli in DSSCs. The results showed improvement in power conversion efficiency (PCE) and reduction in charge transfer resistance Rct. Enhanced PCE of 7.58% (20% improvement) was achieved from plasmonic cell with TiO2/AuNPs compared with 6.29% of the reference cell. Moreover, Rct decreased from 62 Ω to 35 Ω (by 77% improvement). The results revealed also that AuNPs can be used as selective scattering factors which are promising in the fabricating of efficient DSSCs with appropriate transparency.