A solid-state unsymmetrical cyanine dye sensitized nanoporous TiO2 photoelectrochemical cell

A novel unsymmetrical cyanine dye (noted as CD) was applied to dye-sensitized nanoporous TiO2 photoelectrochemical cells. The incident photon-to-electron conversion efficiency up to 84.34% was achieved, which is notably high for cells employing pure organic dyes. To circumvent the sealing difficulties present in wet type cells, the solid-state cell was fabricated using poly(ethyleneoxide)(PEO) based gel network polymer electrolyte as charge transfer material between two electrodes. The resulting solid-state cell had an energy conversion efficiency of 0.86%, with open circuit voltage of 0.53 V and short circuit current density of 0.96 mA/cm2 under 38.1 mW/cm2 white light illumination. The results show that the gel network polymer electrolyte is appropriate for assembling solid-state photoelectrochemical cells.EI071105-11072