High-Performance, Transparent, Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells for See-Through Photovoltaic Windows

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) have attracted great interest as one of the most promising photovoltaic technologies, and transparent DSCs show potential applications as photovoltaic windows. However, the competition between light absorption for photocurrent generation and light transmittance for obtaining high transparency limits the performance of transparent DSCs. Here, transparent DSCs exhibiting a high light transmittance of 60.3% and high energy conversion efficiency (3.66%) are reported. The strategy is to create a cocktail system composed of ultraviolet and near-infrared dye sensitizers that selectively and efficiently harvest light in the invisible or low-eye-sensitivity region while transmitting light in high-eye-sensitivity regions. This new design provides a reasonable approach for realizing high efficiency and transparency DSCs that have potential applications as photovoltaic windows.