Electrospun nest-shaped TiO2 structures as a scattering layer for dye sensitized solar cells

Nest-shaped TiO2 (NS-TiO2) structures were fabricated by an electrospinning technique and used as an effective scattering layer on the top of TiO2 nano-particle electrodes in dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The NS-TiO2 scattering layer enhanced the photocurrent of DSSCs due to the enhanced light harvesting via the improved light scattering and lower electron transfer resistance. Under one sun illumination (AM 1.5G, 100 mW cm(-2)), a high efficiency of 8.02% was achieved for the cell with a NS-TiO2 scattering layer, which was an increase of 7.1% compared to the cell without a scattering layer (7.49%).