Temperature effects in dye-sensitized solar cells

In the standard solar cell technologies such as crystalline silicon and cadmium telluride, increments of temperature in the cell produce large variations in the energy conversion efficiency, which decreases at a constant rate. In dye solar cells the efficiency remains roughly constant with a maximum at around 30-40 degrees C and further decays above this temperature. In this work, the origin of this characteristic behavior is explained. Data show that under illumination recombination kinetics in the active layer of the cell is the same between -7 and 40 degrees C. Consequently, the efficiency of the cell remained virtually constant, with only small differences in the fill factor associated with changes in the series resistance. A further increase in temperature up to 70 degrees C produces an increase in recombination kinetics yielding lower photopotential and device performance. Finally, it is emphasized that at the normal operating temperatures of solar cells, the gap among the conversion efficiency of different technologies is much smaller than generally acknowledged.