Effect of Temperature and Electrode Thickness on the Performance of Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

The temperature and the electrode thickness are among the important parameters which affect the performance of photovoltaic cells. Based on a diffusion model defined in the literature, these effects have been investigated by using MATLAB. This model is mainly characterized by the diffusion of electrons in the semiconductor porous film (TiO2). As a result, the increase of temperature has no effect on the density of the photocurrent. Moreover, when the thickness increases, the current density increases but after a certain value (15 µm) it decreases. The increase of the thickness results to a decrease in power and fill factor (FF), due to the internal resistance of the cell. In addition, the power conversion efficiency (PCE) is proportional to the temperature, as well as the thickness, except that the PCE starts to decrease from a certain value of the thickness (d = 5 µm). The simulation shows that the optimal electrode thickness is 5 µm.