TY - SER AU - Islam,Naveed Ul AU - Dutta,Joydeep AU - Manukid Parnichkun, AU - Chanchana Thanachayanont, ED - Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan, ED - Asian Institute of Technology Fellowship, TI - Fabrication of dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC): focusing on improvement in cell performance T2 - Thesis PY - 2007/// CY - Pathum Thani, Thailand PB - Asian Institute of Technology KW - Photovoltaic power system N1 - A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Engineering in Microelectronics, School of Engineering and Technology; Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2007 N2 - The continuous growing demand of energy and in the parallel a sharp decrease of present energy reserves has focused the world attention to look for some alternate energy resources. Of all the available alternate energy resources solar energy is the only one that is available in maximum parts of the world. Unfortunately, at present no device is available that canfeasibly convert the solar energy into electrical energy such that it could be used as a main stream energy resource at affordable cost. It is this feasibility requirement that gave rise to the concept of Dye Sensitized Solar Cell (DSSC) which has the advantages of lower material cost and ease of fabrication. Still in infancy, this technology needs further performance improvements to become comparable with solid state solar cells and that is the ultimate goal set for this thesis work. This thesis report starts with the basic introduction to already eXIstmg photovoltaic technologies and the problems associated with them to become a main steam energy source. Chapter 2 gives a detailed understanding of standard DSSC concept. Performance limiting factors of the cell have also been discussed with possible solutions. As a major task of the present work, the fabrication of DSSC carried out in the NanoLab is explained in chapter 3 including complete design details of each fabrication step_ The fabricated DSSC exhibited the standard performance parameters giving a confidence to think of some innovations in the present cell structure for performance improvement. The important part of the present work involves the modification of DSSC photoelectrode with gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) that has been efficiently synthesized within the pores of semiconductor film. With this new DSSC structure an efficiency of about 10% with a fill factor of about 68% has been obtained UR - http://203.159.5.9/ait-thesis/detail.php?q=B11076 ER -