Overview of dye-sensitized solar cells

Among the different solar technologies, the dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) shows tremendous promise in delivering a low-cost, high-manufacturability solution to an energy economy free of fossil fuels and their adverse impacts. However, in a quarter of a century, the overall conversion efficiency of DSSCs reported in the literature has increased by only 4%. This chapter provides an overview of the DSSC design, describes the current state of the technology, and puts into perspective factors that have hindered the improvement of the cell efficiency, despite the tremendous amount of effort invested in improving the technology. It points to the highly complex and nontrivial nature of DSSC optimization and a need for fundamentally understanding the physics, dynamics, and interplay of internal DSSC components, through multiscale first principles mathematical modeling of DSSCs. These models can describe processes occurring inside the cells in different temporal and spatial scales, and allow for in silico design and optimization of DSSCs.