Enhancement of Exciton Generation and Sustainability in Dye Sensitized Solar Cell with Photoanode of Nb/Nd Co-Doped TiO2 Incorporated with Natural Dye Extracted from Pouteria campechiana Fruits

For the first time, natural dye was extracted using ethanol from the fruits of Pouteria campechiana and used to soak the Nb/Nd co-doped TiO2 coated FTO substrate which served as photoanode of dye sensitized solar cell. X-Ray diffraction, photoluminscence and Raman spectroscopy were used to analyse the structural, vibrational and emission characteristics of the pure and Nb/Nd co-doped TiO2 samples. The sensitizer soaked Nb/Nd co-doped TiO2 over FTO substrate was sandwiched with the graphite coated FTO incorporated with the redox couple of iodine/triiodide (I–/I3–) occupying the layer between the photoanode and counter electrode to fabricate the solar cell architecture as FTO/Nb/Nd-TiO2/dye/I–/I3–/graphite-TiO2/FTO. JV characteristic study was carried out for the solar cells with and without Nb/Nd co-doped TiO2 with the sensitizer and it was found that, the solar cell with Nb/Nd co-doped TiO2 produced an efficiency of 0.83% with open circuit voltage and short circuit current density of 0.67508 V and 2.3656 mA/cm2.