Introduction In the search for clean and renewable energy sources that are also cheap and reliable,

man has scoured the earth looking for an answer. Though, I believe we should be looking up. The sun provides approximately 1000 watts of power per square meter to the earth on a bright sunny day.1 Plants have been using this energy since the dawn of time, which begs the question, How do we do that? The answer is photovoltaic cells, more commonly known as solar cells. Over the years, man has come up with several types of cells that produce power directly from sunlight. Silicon, being the base element in the most common solar cells, has led the industry for years in efficiency vs cost.1 This means, though there are cheaper cells and there are more efficient cells, silicon based cells are the happy medium. But, there is an up and coming competitor that dares to challenge silicon for the crown, and that competitor is known as the dye-sensitized solar cell. Though less efficient, dye-sensitized solar cells are drawing lots of attention from researchers in the solar industry because of their low cost and ease of manufacturing. And due to recent research, dye-sensitized solar cells have the potential to meet, and even beat, silicon solar cell efficiency.2 Also, this new research has found that dye-sensitized solar cells can be produced in more environmental friendly ways but is believed it would drive up the costs.2.3 With these two competitors, which one will win out? Will increases in current cost halt the dyesensitized solar cell? Or, will the environmental impact of silicon manufacturing be a downfall? I believe that even with increasing cost, dye-sensitized solar cells will rise to outperform silicon solar cells and gain tremendous backing due to their low environmental impact during manufacturing.

How silicon solar cells work Understanding how silicon solar cells work can be pretty difficult without a decent understanding of physics. But, an analogy can help sum up the general idea of how it works. Consider two plates that are separated by some height. The bottom plate has a bunch of bowl like divots filled with water. We want to water to get up to the top plate, so, we start throwing rubber balls at the pools of water. When a rubber ball hits the water with enough force, the water splashes up onto the top plate. From there, the water runs over to a gutter and down a pipe where it turns a small waterwheel. After the water turns the waterwheel, it flows back into the bottom plate and refills the divots. We can continue to get water on the top plate to run down the pipe and turn the wheel by simply continuing to throw rubber balls at the water.1

Illustration 1: Water analogy of how a solar cell works

Using this analogy, we can understand how solar cells work. The water in the analogy above are electrons. The plates are the two sides of a solar cell and are two types of silicon that has been purposely contaminated (doped) with boron in one and phosphorus in the other. The phosphorus-doped silicon is the bottom plate and the boron-doped silicon is the top plate.1 Phosphorus has five electrons in its outer shell, silicon has four, and boron only has three. Looking at the atomic Illustration 2: Silicon lattice structure (4).

structure of silicon, we see a lattice of silicon atoms (white balls in the illustration) connected (bonded) together by their electrons (the blue lines). These electron bonds are not easily broken, so the electrons are not allowed to move about freely, and therefore makes silicon a very bad conductor, or insulator. But what if we were to replace one of the silicon atoms with a phosphorus atom, which has five electrons to share? The phosphorus would bond right into place no problem. But now there is the fifth electron just sitting there all by itself, not bonded Illustration 3: Phosphorus-doped silicon (4).

to anything. This electron can easily be knocked free by a little bit of energy. Because there is an extra electron on the lattice, the lattice is no longer electrically neutral. Instead it is electrically negative due to the extra electron having a negative charge. So we will refer to phosphorus-doped silicon as being the n-type, meaning negative type of doped silicon.4 Now that we have a free electron, we run into a small problem. The electron has nowhere to go. So, we make another Illustration 4: Boron-doped silicon (4).

lattice of silicon, this time replacing a silicon atom with a boron atom that only has three electrons to share. Again, the boron fits right into place. But, instead of an extra electron, there is a hole where a free electron wants to drop into. Similarly, because there is one less electron than a normal silicon lattice, we get a positive charge on the lattice. We will refer to boron-doped silicon as being the ptype, meaning positive type of doped silicon.4 If we take our two doped silicon lattices and we connect them with a piece of conducting wire, say copper, this gives the electron a bridge to move from the phosphorus-doped (n-type) lattice to the boron-doped (p-type) lattice. But, the electron cannot do this on its own. Though it is not bonded to

anything, we still need to give it a little push to get it going. Enter the Sun! Light is energy, and it just so happens that it is enough energy to get the electron moving from one plate to the other. And, if we put an electronic device between the two lattices, the electron will do work as it moves through the device. At that point, we have successfully produced power from light!

How Dye-sensitized solar cells work Dye-sensitized cells, on the other hand, work a bit differently. Dye-sensitized solar cells, which will be abbreviated by DSSC, were invented by Michael Gratzel and Brian O'Regan in 1991. These DSSC use a photoelectrochemical process to produce electricity. DSSC are made up of several essential components. The most obvious one is a photosensitive dye that gives off electrons when the energy from light is absorbed. When the electron is given off, there then needs to be a conductive material for it to travel through and connect to an electronic device.5 Once through the device, the electron heads back to a part of the DSSC that has a special material that, when the original electron was given off by the dye, gives one of its electrons to the dye to replace the other electron. This is done by two processes called oxidation and reduction in an oxidation-reduction reaction, or redox reaction. A redox reaction is defined as the transfer of electrons from one species to another.6 During oxidation an electron is given off to the dye. This creates a hole for the returning electron to drop into, which is the reduction, thus completing a full redox reaction.5,6 Now the process is free to continually repeat itself as long as there is light shining on the dye to give off electrons. Again, this is a very simplified description of how DSSC work, but provides one with the general idea.

Production of Silicon solar cells For the production of solar cells, one will require an exceptionally pure silicon wafer (about 99.9999999% pure) to begin with and this is no exaggeration. Obtaining this level of purity is actually easier than it may seem. In fact, the silicon itself does a lot of the work. A clever way of creating such purity is by using what is called the Czochralski technique. In this technique silicon is heated until it melts into a liquid state. Once melted, a small pure silicon crystal (or seed crystal) is put in contact with the surface of the liquid silicon. And, once this seed crystal comes in contact with the liquid, silicon molecules will begin structuring themselves around the seed crystal and use it like a blueprint to continually form a crystalline structure until there is no more silicon left to be added. Then the seed crystal and the newly formed silicon crystal is raised from the furnace where it was melted and taken out to cool. Pictured to the right is a single silicon crystal that has be grown using the Czochralski technique. This boule, as they are called, weighs about 130lbs and is just over 6ft tall. After the silicon boule cools, Illustration 5: Single silicon crystal grown by Czochralski technique (7)

it will be cut into thin silicon wafers that can be used in a vast array of electronic devices, or in our case, silicon solar cells.7

Production of Dye-sensitized solar cells Dye-sensitized solar cells are made of a few accentual components that have been described previously. In standard DSSC's a ruthenium based dye is used to cover a photoanode that is made out of Titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles. This is dyed TiO2 plate is then placed on top of an electrolyte that is responsible for the redox-reaction described earlier.8 But, the production of the TiO2 are rather difficult and somewhat costly to produce since there is Illustration 6: Standard DSSC (8)

currently no major industrial foundation for which to produce such technologically sophisticated nanoparticles. That is, until man looked to nature for help.

Diatoms In just the last few years, researchers at Oregon State University and Portland State University have found that microscopic single-celled algae, called Diatoms, could be used to greatly improve the efficiency of DSSC.2 These tiny little creatures make exoskeletal shells, called frustules, out of amorphous silica found in sand on the ocean floor. Because the diatoms themselves are so small, they are able to produce structures in their shells that are smaller than what we can see with a conventional Illustration 7: A group of Diatoms (8) microscope and we must resort to a Scanning Electron Microscope in order to see their incredible structural design.

When we start to take a closer look at the diatom with the use of an S.E.M. Under relatively low magnification, we can begin to see that there is a texture pattern to the shells of the diatom (illustration 8). But as we begin to zoom-in closer and closer, we see that the shell is covered in tiny divots (illustration 9) that are arranged in a nice uniform linear pattern across the entirety of the shell. But, there is even more Illustration 8: Diatom under low magnification with S.E.M. (8)

to these divots than currently meets the eye. As we continue to look closer, we see that there are divots inside the divots of the diatom's shell (illustration 10). These tiny shells are considered nanostructures and are incredibly intricate and beyond the manufacturing capability of current technology!

Illustration 9: Closer look at the structure of a diatom shell (8)

Illustration 10: A look inside the divots of a diatom's shell (8)

Diatoms and Dye-sensitized solar cells What do these diatoms have to do with solar cells? Well, Gregory Rorrer and his lab team at Oregon State University have found that, if instead of being presented with silica to create their shells, diatoms that are fed TiO2 will construct their shells out it. And, these diatoms, when living together in a large colony, will build their shells together to form a mostly continuous layer (illustration 11). Which, if Illustration 11: Continuous shell of a diatom you recall, a layer of TiO2 is an essential element in colony (8) the production of DSSC.2,8 So, now that we have figured out that diatoms can construct nanostructures beyond our current manufacturing capability, how then do we use them to make DSSC? Rorrer and his team found that when diatoms live in a colony and produce these continuous shell, that the shell can be removed from the diatoms without harming them, since they only need it for protection from predators which are not present in the lab where they are grown.2 Yet, this is still the the most exciting part about the diatoms' shells. Where the shells really shine (no pun Illustration 12: Light reflecting multiple intended) is that all those nano-sized divots reflect light times in divots (Howard) inside themselves multiple times due to the concave shape of the divots (illustration 13). This cause the light to pass through the light sensitive dye allowing it to give more of its energy to the dye with every reflection causing the dye to give off more electrons, thus creating more electricity!8

As you can see in illustration 13, with a diatom created TiO2 layer added to a DSSC the light is able to reflect back through the dye and generate more electricity. Since the DSSC produces more electricity per area, its production efficiency is greater than conventional DSSC.

Illustration 13: Diatom created TiO2 in a DSSC (8)

Solar cell efficiency A huge factor that needs to be looked at is the bottom line. How efficient are silicon solar cells compared to dye-sensitized solar cells? Efficiency is usually given in percent conversion. This means that of the 1000 watts of energy per square meter the sun provides the earth, solar cells are only able to convert a percent of that energy into electricity that can be used. So, a solar panel that covers one square meter and is 5% efficient will produce 50 watts of electricity. Looking back to when the first silicon solar cell was produced in 1954 it was reported to be less than 4% efficient. In 1983, silicon solar cells were being reported to have 16.5% efficiency. Later in 1988 researchers and developers reported 21.4% efficiency. And, as of 2009, silicon solar cells have reached an efficiency of 25%.9,10 Dye-sensitized solar cells today do not share the same level of efficiency with only just under 10% efficient. Rorrer and team members ran experiments on conventional DSSC vs diatom DSSC to compare efficiency ratings under identical conditions. Their results showed that a diatom enhanced DSSC was over twice as efficient as a conventional DSSC! This giant leap in efficiency put diatom DSSCs at 20% efficient, just 5% behind the silicon solar cell.2,8

Thoughts and Conclusion Looking back at the information that has been laid before us, one would easily conclude that the bottom line is silicon solar cells just flat outperform DSSC. But lets look at a few more factors before we jump to a hasty conclusion. First off, silicon solar cells have been around for over half a century. This has given researchers ample time to study, experiment, and understand how they work while DSSC have only been around for less than half the time silicon cells have. Along with this half century of existence came the monstrously huge electronics industry to back it up. In this information age, industry depends highly on ultra-pure silicon in order to make every electronic device that we today have come to be completely engulfed in.7 With such a strong industrial backbone, pure silicon crystals necessary for solar cells has become common place in today's world. DSSC, unfortunately, cannot afford the same luxury. They are confined to small laboratories and university research departments. Yet, even with these restrictions on facilities and funding, DSSCs have come a long way in the last 21 years thanks to the ground breaking research performed by Dr. Gregory Rorrer and his colleagues at Oregon State University. I cannot argue the efficiency and strong backbone that makes silicon solar cells the current leader in photovoltaics. But, I would not count dye-sensitized solar cells out just yet. Though they are lacking in a couple areas, they are fast on their way to a becoming a formidable rival that could result in cheaper, more efficient green energy for future generations to come.

1. Quaschning V. Renewable energy and climate change. 2010. Berlin (Germany): Wiley.

2.Johnson RC. Diatoms could triple solar cell efficiency [Web]. Portland (OR): EETimes; [2009/9/4]. Available from: http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4082686/Diatoms-could-triple-solar-cell-efficiency

3. de Wild-Scholten MJ, Veltkamp AC. Environmental life cycle of dye sensitized solar devices; status and outlook. 2007. Petten (Netherlands): ECN Solar Energy. http://www.ecn.nl/docs/library/report/2007/m07081.pdf

4.Lynn PA. Electricity from sunlight: an introduction to photovoltaics. 2010. Hoboken (NJ): Wiley.

5. Likhtenshtein G. Solar energy conversion. 2012. Weinheim (Germany): Wiley.

6. Bettelheim FA, Brown WH, Campbell MK, Farrell SO. Introduction to general, organic, and biochemistry. 2010. Canada: Brooks/Cole

7. McWhan D. Sand and silicon: science that changed the world. 2012. Oxford (NY): Oxford University Press.

8. Rorrer G, Calyton J, Campbll J, Haiyan L, Jiao J. The potential of diatom nanobiotechnology for applications in solar cells, batteries, and electroluminescent devices. 2011. Energy & Environmental Science. Sci., 4, 3930 DOI: 10.1039/c0ee00306a

9. Green MA. The path to 25% silicon solar cell efficiency: history of silicon solar cell evolution. 2009. Published online in Wiley InterScience. Www.interscience.wiley.com DOI:10.1002/pip.892

10.U.S. Dept. of Energy [Internet]. Washington (DC): U.S. Dept. of Energy; 2001. [Cited 2012 Nov 10]. Available from: www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/pdfs/solar_timeline.pdf