Abstract
•Recent achievements of organic–inorganic UCNPs hybrid nanocomposites for DSSCs devices are summarized.•Role of morphology is discussed to improve the photocurrent conversion efficiency.•Impact of plasmonic nanoparticles on photovoltaic current efficiency are systematically presented.•Future challenges and improvement of UCNPs based DSSCs are proposed.
Highly photochemically and thermally stable upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs) have shown their uses in photovoltaic dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Lanthanide-based UCNPs exhibited tunable absorption in the near-infrared (NIR) range and have a strong ability to transfer from the higher wavelength (NIR light) photons into lower wavelength photons (visible light) over UC procedure. Here, we comprehensively discussed the emerging application of UCNPs in DSSCs. We try to clarify the critical physical concepts that the UCNPs efficiently achieve the transfer of energy. The morphology, crystal structure, and coupling with plasmonic NPs, graphene, and mesoporous TiO2 shell greatly affect the total power transformation efficiency performance of the DSSCs. 1D nanostructures such as rods, tubes, and fibers significantly boost the efficiency of charge collection by providing DSSCs with direct transport pathways. Furthermore, a high specific surface area with a mesoporous structure greatly increases dye loading that increases the photovoltaic current performance. Additionally, we explain the various factors which influence the emission efficiency as well as the photovoltaic current of the fabricated cells. We discussed and explain the various host lattice along with their synthesis and physiochemical characteristics used for the fabrication of effective DSSCs. Here, we proposed the UCNPs and their surface functionalities greatly improve the photovoltaic current and their recent development in the designed DSSCs device. This analysis also offers an advantageous guide focused on lanthanide-doped UCNPs for material synthesis and optoelectronic system construction. The analysis concludes by evaluating the parameters of electron transport for Jsc, Voc, FF, and power conversion efficiency (η). The light-harvesting efficiency of UCNPs-based DSSCs can be increased considering the electron transport properties.