Breakthroughs in the Development of Semiconductor-Sensitized Solar Cells

Semiconductor sensitized solar cells have attracted growing interest in the past few years. Starting from quite low conversion efficiencies, these have grown very rapidly to values of around 4−5%. This Perspective analyzes the optimization of three aspects toward an increase in cell performance, (i) materials, including not only light-absorbing material but also electron and hole conductors and counter electrodes, (ii) control of recombination and band alignment by surface treatments, and (iii) development of absorbing nanocomposites with enhanced light-harvesting and -collecting properties. We argue that these key topics could promote major breakthroughs in the design and development of semiconductor-sensitized solar cells.