Optical properties of nano-structured dye-sensitized solar cells

Radiative transfer computations are carried out to describe the intrinsic and effective optical properties of light diffusing and absorbing materials consisting of anatase titania pigments hosted in an electrolyte medium. The intrinsic visible absorption of some of the pigments has been increased by coating them with an absorbing dye monolayer. A multiple scattering approach is applied to compute average path-length parameters and forward-scattering ratios used in four-flux radiative transfer calculations. It is shown that the effective absorption coefficient of the inhomogeneous medium is maximized when the size of the pigments is around 12 nm in diameter, and the effective scattering coefficient is optimized for diameters of the pigments around 250 nm. The intrinsic solar absorptance of the medium is optimized when the diameter of the pigments is around 60 nm.