Influence of illumination spectra on DSSC performance

The possibility to create dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) using nontoxic and inex-pensive materials under usual lab or industrial conditions, i.e. without a cleanroom, has aroused large interest in this technology during the last decades. DSSCs are known to function well in low light or diffuse light conditions. Therefore, they could be interesting for indoor use, where the ambient light may have different spectra. In DSSCs, the visible light is absorbed by a dye molecule. The efficiency is affected by the overlapping grade of the maxima in the dye absorption spectrum and in the illumi-nation spectrum, i.e. through an appropriate choice of dye, the efficiency can be max-imized for each illumination condition.