Mathematical modeling of dye-sensitized solar cells

The main objective of this chapter is to describe the different components of a macroscopic-scale first-principles dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) mathematical model. It starts from the optical absorption and photoresponse of panchromatic dye sensitizers. The photogeneration rate, along with transport dynamics and recombination kinetics, forms the transport-conservation equations, which are the heart of the phenomenological diffusion-recombination model and diffusion-drift model. These device-level models regard DSSC as a homogeneous medium and aim to describe the device's current-voltage performance. Based on this methodology, a number of simulators have been developed to model the DSSC in 1D, 2D, and 3D configurations. The validity of the simulation mainly depends on the accuracy of kinetic parameters such as the apparent diffusion coefficient and the electron lifetime, which are strongly influenced by the intrinsic properties of the disordered semiconductor medium and its morphology. The dispersive electron transport can be understood from a fundamental point of view by multiple trapping or hopping transport.