Enhancing dye-sensitized solar cell efficiency by anode surface treatments

•The flexible dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) device can be fabricated.•Many effective surface treatment methods to improve DSSC efficiency are elucidated.•The efficiency is dramatically enhanced by integrating surface treatment methods.•The back-illuminated DSSC efficiency was raised from 4.6% to 7.8%.

In this study, titanium substrates treated with HF solution and KOH solution sequentially forming micro- and nano-structures were used for the fabrication of flexible dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). After wet etching treatments, the titanium substrates were then exposed to the O2 plasma treatment and further immersed in titanium tetrachloride (TiCl4) solution. The process conditions for producing a very thin TiO2 blocking layer were studied, in order to avoid solar cell current leakage for increasing the solar cell efficiency. Subsequently, TiO2 nanoparticles were spin-coated on Ti substrates with varied thickness. The dye-sensitized solar cells on the titanium substrates were subjected to simulate AM 1.5 G irradiation of 100 mW/cm2 using backside illumination mode. Surface treatments of Ti substrate and TiO2 anode were found to play a significant role in improving the efficiency of DSSC. The efficiencies of the backside illumination solar cells were raised from 4.6% to 7.8% by integrating these surface treatments.