Solid electrolyte yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) for photoelectrochemical cell based on ZnO nanorods thin film.

Photoelectrochemical-based solar cells (PEC) are promising candidates as a renewable energy source technology. The most common material in PEC is ZnO with nanorods structure, which can increase the conversion efficiency of PEC performance due to its large surface area. Research on PEC-based solar cells that have been widely carried out still uses electrolytes in liquid or conventional form. The use of liquid electrolytes in PEC cells still results in low performance. The solid electrolyte is considered to be able to improve the performance of solar cells. Yttria Stabilized Zirconia was chosen because it is a solid electrolyte with high mechanical properties and ionic conductivity. ZnO NRs and ZnO NRs/YSZ samples were characterized by XRD, SEM, UV-VIS, and IV. The XRD results showed that the YSZ peak was more dominant in the ZnO NRs/YSZ and ZnO samples. SEM results show the same thing with XRD, the morphology of YSZ is more prevalent than the ZnO. UV-VIS results show that the use of YSZ as a solid electrolyte increases the band gap value. Finally, Result IV shows an increase in solar cell efficiency, from 0.07% in ZnO NRs to 0.42% in ZnO NRs/YSZ. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]