Nanospikes decorated ZnO sheets for solar cell application

This work reports the synthesis of nanospikes decorated ZnO sheets on the electrodeposited ZnO seeded fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) substrates through the hydrothermal method at 90°C and applied as photoanode for the efficient dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The unique nanospikes decorated ZnO sheets are comprised of nanospikes with the average diameter of ~80-100 nm and the sheets of several nanometers. The ZnO nanospikes are decorated on either one side or the both side of the single ZnO sheets (thickness ~50-60 nm). The X-Rays diffraction and UV-Vis spectroscopy results reveal that the grown nanospikes decorated ZnO sheets exhibit well crystalline with typical wurtzite hexagonal phase of ZnO nanostructures. A growth mechanism is proposed to investigate the formation of the grown nanospikes decorated ZnO sheets. The solar-to-electricity conversion efficiency of ~2.51% with the high short circuit current (JSC) of 6.07 mA/cm² is attained by DSSC fabricated with nanospikes decorated ZnO sheets photoanode. The enhanced performance might be associated to the high charge collection and the fast electrons transfer at the interfaces of ZnO and the electrolyte layer due to the high dye absorption over the surface of ZnO leading to high light harvesting.