CuO shell as a protective layer to improve the stability of ZnO nanorods-based photoelectrode in DSSCs

ZnO has optoelectronic properties that are suitable for dye-sensitized solar cells. One significant issue that leads to the low performance of ZnO-based devices is the dissolution of Zn atom in the acidic dye solution during the fabrication process. In this work, we investigate the utilization of ZnO-CuO core-shell nanostructures in ZnO-based dye-sensitized solar cells as an effective method to improve significantly the power conversion efficiency of fabricated devices.