Optical and electronic loss analysis of mesoporous solar cells

We review the art of complete optical and electronic characterization of the popular mesoporous solar cell motif. An overview is given of how the mesoporous paradigm is applied to solar cell technology, followed by a discussion on the variety of techniques available for thoroughly probing efficiency leaching mechanisms at every stage of the energy transfer pathway. Some attention is dedicated to the rising importance of computational results to augment loss analysis due to the complexity of solar cell devices, which have emergent properties that are important to account for, but difficult to measure, such as parasitic absorption.