Electrospun nest-shaped TiO₂ structures as a scattering layer for dye sensitized solar cells

Nest-shaped TiO₂ (NS-TiO₂) structures were fabricated by an electrospinning technique and used as an effective scattering layer on the top of TiO₂ nano-particle electrodes in dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The NS-TiO₂ scattering layer enhanced the photocurrent of DSSCs due to the enhanced light harvesting via the improved light scattering and lower electron transfer resistance. Under one sun illumination (AM 1.5G, 100 mW cm^-2), a high efficiency of 8.02% was achieved for the cell with a NS-TiO₂ scattering layer, which was an increase of 7.1% compared to the cell without a scattering layer (7.49%).