Strategies for efficient harvesting of solar energy using quantum dots and dye-sensitized devices
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Authors
Puntambekar, Ajinkya
Issue Date
2017-12
Type
Electronic thesis
Thesis
Thesis
Language
ENG
Keywords
Chemical engineering
Alternative Title
Abstract
The primary focus of the first project is to understand the fundamental nature of energy and charge transfer processes occurring in a DSSC device and to develop strategies that ultimately lead to improvement in the device efficiencies. Despite their huge potential, DSSCs employing phosphors in their architecture have shown only a marginal improvement in the device performance. This is partly due to the lack of understanding of the mechanism of energy transfer processes from the excited state phosphors to dye sensitizer molecules. In the present study, energy transfer processes involving phosphor and organic sensitizing dyes were studied using steady-state as well as transient photoluminescence spectroscopy. The results from these experiments indicated that the mode of energy transfer between the phosphor and the dye is radiative in nature, as opposed to Forster Resonance Energy Transfer (FRET) that is generally observed in the case involving organic relay dyes. Prototype solar cell devices prepared with the incorporation of up-conversion phosphors demonstrated 63% increase in the photocurrent density and 54% improvement in the overall power generation efficiency over the devices that had no phosphor incorporation.
Description
December 2017
School of Engineering
School of Engineering
Full Citation
Publisher
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY