Recent progress in electrode fabrication materials and various insights in solar cells: Review

In recent times, substantial progress have been made in the development of primary and applied aspects of solar cells especially in light weight materials and low-cost electrode materials for the improvement of power generation devices. Various new strategies, methods and innovative approaches were implemented in organic, bulk-heterojunction, polymer and dye-sensitized solar cell applications to increase the overall power conversion efficiencies. Herein, we review the recent developments made in electrode materials based on carbon, metal oxides, polymers and nanocomposites for the development of solar cells. In addition, progresses made in the fabrication methods (coating and printing methods) have also been reviewed. The important factors such as solvents, temperature and atmosphere are also discussed. Special attention has been given to the characterization methods reported for the DSSCs.