Influence of the preparation conditions of TiO2 electrodes on the performance of solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells with CuI as a hole collector

Solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) were fabricated in which the thin p-CuI film acts as a hole collector. Influences of the different preparation methods, composition, aging time of the TiO2 pastes and sensitizing time on the performance of the cells were investigated. Different preparation routes for the TiO2 paste do not obviously affect the performance of the cells. The volume of water, acetic acid and 2-propanol contained in the TiO2 pastes and the amount of the TiO2 powder were determined. The efficiency of the cells remains nearly stable when the aging period of the TiO2 pastes is within one week. The favorable dying time is above 2 h. The cells having a favorable performance deliver a mean short-circuit photocurrent of ∼10.8 mA cm−2 and mean open-circuit voltage of 0.61 V at 100 mW cm−2 (1.5 AM). The mean fill factor and the mean efficiency of these cells are ∼0.55% and 3.7%, respectively. The short-circuit photocurrent rapidly decays after 3 h, and at the same time, the open-circuit voltage slowly decreases when the time increases, and then remains nearly stable after 24 h.