Study on photoconductivity of dye-polymer-based solid-state thin film

In this article, we describe a solid-state photoelectrochemical cell for light detection. Safranine-T dye mixed with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) solution was deposited on a conducting and transparent indium-tin-oxide (ITO)-coated glass that was used as one electrode and another ITO-coated glass as the counterelectrode. A solid polymeric electrolyte consisting of polyethylene oxide-ammonium perchlorate-ethylene carbonate and propylene carbonate with suitable weight ratio was prepared and sandwiched between these two ITO-coated glass electrodes, which were separated by a Teflon spacer about 50 microm thick. The cell was biased with a direct current source to make the dye and PVA-coated ITO as the anode and the other ITO as the cathode. On illumination by a tungsten lamp, from the cathode side, the change of photocurrent was measured. The dark current-voltage characteristics and the growth and decay of the photocurrent for steady and pulsed illumination were studied.