The strong interest shown by the companies in the development of the dye solar cell as a commercial device has generated a big interest in the development of solid state devices. One of the approaches to substitute the liquid phase used in the original solar cells is to use spiro-OMeTAD as hole conductor. Although efficiencies between 4 and 5%[1,2] have been reached in several labs on this device, the improvement of these values is currently limited by the lack of a deep knowledge of the main parameters influencing their electrical behavior.
In this presentation, the more relevant elements contributing to the electrical response of the spiro-OMeTAD based solid state dye solar cells will be identified. Then the influence of each of these elements in the efficiency and fill factor will be analyzed and the evolution of these parameters and effects and mechanism of degradation described.

1 L. Schmidt-Mende et al. Adv. Mater. 2005, 17, 813
2 S.Handa et al. Chem. Com. 2007, 1725–1727.