title: ZnO hierarchical structures for efficient quasi-solid dye-sensitized solar cells.
abstract: We report a direct precipitation method for mass production of ZnO microflowers (MFs) containing hierarchical structures. The ZnO MFs are constructed by interlaced single crystalline and porous nanosheets which are ideal photoanode material for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) because the MFs can largely improve the energy harvesting performance and the efficiency of DSCs. Compared with other forms of nano-sized structures, the novel hierarchical structures show obvious advantages in DSC application because of their large surface area for dye-loading, good light scattering efficiency and excellent electrical transport property. The quasi-solid state DSCs fabricated with the MF hierarchical structures exhibited an efficiency of 4.12%, much higher than that of ZnO nanoparticle-based DSCs, indicating a great potential for the development of highly-efficient quasi-solid DSCs.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics and the William Mong Institute of Nano Science and Technology, the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China.
authors.forename: Chun
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.forename: Yantao
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.forename: Chao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhu
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Lin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Kwok Kwong
authors.initials: KK
authors.lastname: Fung
authors.forename: Ning
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Wang