Enhanced performance of cadmium selenide quantum dot-sensitized solar cells by incorporating long afterglow europium, dysprosium co-doped strontium aluminate phosphors

•Long afterglow SrAl2O4:Eu,Dy phosphors are introduced into the CdSe QDSSCs.•SrAl2O4:Eu,Dy phosphors improve the cell efficiency at one sun illumination.•The cell can be driven by the long persistent light from SrAl2O4:Eu,Dy in the dark.

CdSe quantum dot-sensitized solar cells based on an efficient bifunctional structured layer composed of long afterglow SrAl2O4:Eu,Dy phosphors on top of a transparent layer of nanocrystalline TiO2 were fabricated and their photovoltaic performances were investigated. The results show that a high power conversion efficiency of 1.22% is achieved for the cell with SrAl2O4:Eu,Dy at one sun illumination (AM 1.5 G, 100 mW cm−2), which is an increase of 48% compared to the cell without SrAl2O4:Eu,Dy (0.82%). After one sun illumination for 1 min and subsequent turn off of the light source, the cell with SrAl2O4:Eu,Dy still shows an efficiency of 0.04% under dark condition due to the irradiation by the long persistent light from SrAl2O4:Eu,Dy. The present strategy should provide a possibility to fulfill the operation of solar cells even in the dark.

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