Photovoltaic fiber

The optoelectronically active optical fiber is demonstrated in this work. This fiber consists of dye sensitized solar cell (DSC) structure deposited on claddingless optical fiber. Both silica and plastic optical fibers are used as a substrate. Such a fiber converts light modes propagating in the modified cladding into electrical signal. DSC structure consisting of ZnO:Al transparent current collector layer, TiO₂ photoelectrode sensitized with ruthenium dye, gelatinized iodine electrolyte, and carbon-based counter electrode was deposited layer by layer on top of the optical fiber. Current density-voltage curves of photovoltaic (PV) fibers of different diameters are presented. Maximum obtained short circuit current, I_sc, was 26 nA/cm² and maximum open circuit voltage, V_oc, was 0.44 V. The fabrication issues and applications of the PV fiber are discussed in the article.