Royal Society of Chemistry, Energy & Environmental Science, 6(4), p. 2240, 2011
DOI: 10.1039/c1ee01196k
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In dye-sensitized solar cells based on anodic titaniananotube arrays, the low photocurrent in the backside-illuminated configuration has hindered their development. To increase the energy absorption and thus promote the photocurrent, a novel parallel configuration of dye-sensitized solar cells is proposed and achieved in this work on the basis of double-sided anodic nanotubes. The parallel connection is verified by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy measurements. The parallel cells exhibit an average 70% increment in photocurrent and 30% enhancement in efficiency as compared to the single cells, due to significantly increased surface area and highly reduced series resistance. Theoretical calculation and experimental fitting results demonstrate that a tube length of 30 μm is optimal for the nanotubes used in this study with backside-illuminated architecture.