title: Nanoforest of hydrothermally grown hierarchical ZnO nanowires for a high efficiency dye-sensitized solar cell.
abstract: In this paper, in order to increase the power conversion efficiency we demonstrated the selective growth of "nanoforest" composed of high density, long branched "treelike" multigeneration hierarchical ZnO nanowire photoanodes. The overall light-conversion efficiency of the branched ZnO nanowire DSSCs was almost 5 times higher than the efficiency of DSSCs constructed by upstanding ZnO nanowires. The efficiency increase is due to greatly enhanced surface area for higher dye loading and light harvesting, and also due to reduced charge recombination by providing direct conduction pathways along the crystalline ZnO "nanotree" multi generation branches. We performed a parametric study to determine optimum hierarchical ZnO nanowire photoanodes through the combination of both length-wise growth and branched growth processes. The novel selective hierarchical growth approach represents a low cost, all solution processed hydrothermal method that yields complex hierarchical ZnO nanowire photoanodes by utilizing a simple engineering of seed particles and capping polymer.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology), Yuseong-gu, Korea. maxko@kaist.ac.kr
authors.forename: Seung Hwan
authors.initials: SH
authors.lastname: Ko
authors.forename: Daeho
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Hyun Wook
authors.initials: HW
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.forename: Koo Hyun
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Nam
authors.forename: Joon Yeob
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Yeo
authors.forename: Suk Joon
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Hong
authors.forename: Costas P
authors.initials: CP
authors.lastname: Grigoropoulos
authors.forename: Hyung Jin
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Sung
mesh_terms: D004396:Coloring Agents / Q000737:chemistry*; D003460:Crystallization / Q000379:methods; D011211:Electric Power Supplies; D004735:Energy Transfer; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D036103:Nanotechnology / Q000295:instrumentation*; D010316:Particle Size; D012993:Solar Energy; D015034:Zinc Oxide / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D004396:Coloring Agents; D015034:Zinc Oxide