Gold nanoparticles and organic dyes for BIPV-DSSCs

Several attempts were performed to use efficient organic dyes for DSSCs as building integrated (BIPV) windows, that could substitute the more expensive Ru complexes. For this particular application, transparency in the 500-600 nm region is a stringent demand that in most cases implied the use a co-sensitizing NIR dye in addition to a dye sensitizer in the visible region. We employed also gold nanorods (GNRs) to enhance the absorption of the two dyes, with the aim of improving also cell efficiency, which was expected to be lower with respect to those obtained in panchromatic applications.