AUTHOR=Juang Sean Sung-Yen , Lin Pei-Ying , Lin Yu-Chiung , Chen Yu-Sheng , Shen Po-Shen , Guo Yu-Ling , Wu Yu-Chun , Chen Peter TITLE=Energy Harvesting Under Dim-Light Condition With Dye-Sensitized and Perovskite Solar Cells JOURNAL=Frontiers in Chemistry VOLUME=7 YEAR=2019 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/chemistry/articles/10.3389/fchem.2019.00209 DOI=10.3389/fchem.2019.00209 ISSN=2296-2646 ABSTRACT=

We demonstrate highly efficient energy harvesting devices for dim-light application under 200 lux irradiation using dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) and perovskite solar cells (PSCs). The high-efficiency DSCs are composed of cobalt-based redox mediators in 3-methoxypropionitrile (MPN) solvent with MK-2 sensitizer. With the introduction of under layer treatment and fine-tuning of compositions in cobalt-based electrolyte, the power conversion efficiency of cobalt-based DSCs achieves 16.0% under 200 lux illumination. That outperforms the best device using the conventional iodine-based electrolyte illuminated with the same light intensity. Especially, cobalt-based electrolyte system exhibits a higher open circuit voltage than iodine-based electrolyte counterpart. We also investigate perovskite solar cells under dim-light condition. PSCs show higher open circuit voltage and short circuit current density than DSCs with efficiency up to 23.4%. In this work, our results demonstrate the promising potential of DSCs and PSCs in the dim-light applications.