Improvement on the long-term stability of dye-sensitized solar module by structural alternation

Dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) module still lacks the long-term stability because of a volatile electrolyte. In this work, structural alternation of DSC parallel modules was proposed for high performance and stability. In the conventional module, the adhesion with the photo/counter electrodes was not stable with only one layer of sealant so that the stability was poor. On the other hand, buried grid module proposed in this work is possible to be stably sealed with only one layer of sealant. In this structure, grid electrodes are leveled with the same height of transparent conductive oxides (TCOs) because grid electrodes are inserted under furrows of etched TCOs. Consequently, the buried grid module had better long-term stability than conventional module. Additionally, the photo-current and efficiency were improved by the sonicated grid and the light scattering layer.