Zinc doped TiO2 blocking layer grown by nanocluster deposition for improved dye-sensitized solar cell performance

Various thicknesses of Zn doped-TiO2 blocking layer were investigated for an enhancement of the efficiency of dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The transmittance of the Zn doped-TiO2 layer is higher than that of TiO2 layer, indicating a similar transmittance to bare FTO. The DSSCs with 20 nm-thick Zn doped-TiO2 blocking layer showed a conversion efficiency of about 8.92%, which showed a significant improvement compared to that (8.60%) of the TiO2 (20 nm) blocking layer and that (7.79%) of the bare FTO.