The purpose of this paper is to improve the efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) which present promising low-cost alternative to the conventional silicon solar cells mainly due to comparatively low manufacturing cost, ease of fabrication and relatively good efficiency. One of the undesirable factor in DSSCs is the electron recombination process that takes place at the transparent conductive oxide/electrolyte interface, on the side of photoelectrode. To reduce this effect in the structure of the solar cell, a TiO2 blocking layer (BL) by atomic layer deposition (ALD) was deposited.,Scanning electron microscope, Raman and UV-Vis spectroscopy were used to evaluate the influence of BL on the photovoltaic properties. Electrical parameters of manufactured DSSCs with and without BL were characterized by measurements of current-voltage characteristics under standard AM 1.5 radiation.,The TiO2 BL prevents the physical contact of fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) and the electrolyte and leads to increase in the cell’s overall efficiency, from 5.15 to 6.18%. Higher density of the BL, together with larger contact area and improved adherence between the TiO2 layer and FTO surface provide more electron pathways from TiO2 to FTO which facilitates electron transfer.,This paper demonstrates that the introduction of a BL into the photovoltaic device structure is an important step in technology of DSSCs to improve its efficiency. Moreover, the ALD is a powerful technique which allows for the highly reproducible growth of pinhole-free thin films with excellent thickness accuracy and conformality at low temperature.

中文翻译：

---

用于染料敏化太阳能电池的 TiO2 阻挡层的原子层沉积

本文的目的是提高染料敏化太阳能电池 (DSSC) 的效率，该电池是传统硅太阳能电池的有前途的低成本替代品，主要是由于制造成本相对较低、易于制造和相对较好的效率。DSSC 中的一个不利因素是在光电极一侧的透明导电氧化物/电解质界面处发生的电子复合过程。为了减少太阳能电池结构中的这种影响，通过原子层沉积 (ALD) 沉积了 TiO2 阻挡层 (BL)。使用扫描电子显微镜、拉曼和紫外-可见光谱来评估 BL 对太阳能电池的影响。光伏特性。通过在标准 AM 1.5 辐射下测量电流 - 电压特性来表征具有和不具有 BL 的制造 DSSC 的电气参数。TiO2 BL 防止掺氟氧化锡 (FTO) 和电解质的物理接触，并导致增加电池的整体效率，从 5.15% 到 6.18%。更高的 BL 密度、更大的接触面积以及 TiO2 层与 FTO 表面之间更好的粘附性提供了更多从 TiO2 到 FTO 的电子路径，从而促进了电子转移。,本文证明将 BL 引入光伏器件结构是DSSCs 技术的重要一步，以提高其效率。而且，