The photovoltaic characteristics of the DSSCs fabricated using
mesoporous SiO2 were studied by recording current density
(J)-voltage (V) characteristics under 1 sun. The estimated photovoltaic
parameters of the fabricated cells as a function of wt% of
mesoporous SiO2 are presented in Fig. 5 [23]. It is to be noted that
the efficiency of reference cell is 2.37% which is similar to the
reported value in literature for 2.5 lm thick TiO2 film. A small
deviation in DSSCs efficiency from its average value indicates high
degree of reproducibility of fabricated devices. An optimized
efficiency of 3.57% is obtained for 0.75 wt% of mesoporous SiO2.
This improvement in efficiency is comparable with those reported