Study of band bending effect in Dye Sensitized Solar Cell through Constant-Current-Discharging Voltage Decay

A measurement method of constant-current-discharging voltage decay is established to characterize the band bending effect in the heterojunction of conducting glass/TiO2 for typical dye-sensitized solar cells. Furthermore, a dark-state electron transport regarding the TiO2 conduction band bending is proposed based upon the viewpoints of thermionic emission mechanism, which suggests an origin of the band bending effect in a theoretical model. This model quantitatively agrees well with our experimental results and indicates that both the Fermi level decay in TiO2 and the potential difference across the heterojunction will lead to the TiO2 conduction band bending downwards.