influence of liquid electrolyte solvent on the efficiency of quantum dots-sensitized solar cells

In this work, firstly carbon quantum dots (cqds) were synthesized using monoethanolamine by electrochemical method. tem image illustrated that the synthesized cqds were in the range of 5 to 30 nm. they were used in fabrication of quantum dots-sensitized solar cell (qdscs) using tio2 as photoanode material on fto electrode (fto/tio2/cqds). secondly, the effect of solvent was investigated in the solar cell’s liquid electrolyte, using three different solvents with the electrolyte of triiodide/iodide redox couple (i-/i3-). three types of solvents, including acetonitrile(an), ethylene glycol (eg) and equal combination of acetonitrile and ethylene glycol were examined. the highest efficiency was observed by iv analyzer, in the fto/tio2/cqds-eg solar cell, producing 0.1 ma/cm2 short-circuit current density (jsc) and 47% fill factor (ff).