A novel photoelectrochemical solar cell with high efficiency in converting ultraviolet light to electricity

A novel photoelectrochemical solar cell was prepared by combining a Sb2S3-sensitized photoactive electrode, polyaniline nanobelts and a Pt counter electrode to form sandwich structure. The incident photo-to-current conversion efficiency measurement found that the cell without any sensitizers just showed a very narrow photo-response wavelength region from 300 nm to 400 nm, while the Sb2S3-sensitized cell showed a broad photo-response wavelength region from 275 nm to 600 nm and much higher efficiency in converting ultraviolet light to electricity than in converting visible light. By optimizing chemical bath deposition duration of 2.5 h, the cell showed high photovoltaic performance with 6.92 mA cm−2 short-circuit current density, 1.098 V open-circuit voltage, 0.497 fill factor, and 3.78% power conversion efficiency, being greatly enhanced compared with that of the cell without any sensitizers (1.09 mA cm−2, 0.866 V, 0.477, 0.45%).