Science Front Publishers Journal for Foundations and Applications of Physics, vol. 5, No. 2 (2018) (sciencefront.org) ISSN 2394-3688 55 Performance Parameters of Graphite and Platinum Counter electrode Based Dye Sensitized Solar Cells Amrik Singh 1* , Dharamvir S. Ahlawat 1 , Devendra Mohan 2 , Divya J. Chawla 3 and Richa 4 1 Material Science Laboratory, Department of Physics, Chaudhary Devi Lal University, Sirsa-125055 Haryana (India) 2 Laser Laboratory, Department of Applied Physics, Guru Jambheshwar University of Science &Technology, Hisar-125001, Haryana (India) 3 Department of Physics, University College, Jaitu, Punjab (India) 4 Department of Physics, I. K. Gujral Punjab Technical University, Kapurthala, Punjab (India) * E-mail: amrik23kuk@gmail.com (Received 27 February 2018, Accepted 23 March 2018, Published 04 May 2018) Abstract In the present course of work, we have successfully prepared a dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) based on TiO 2 film coated ITO (indium doped tin oxide) glass photo anode, N719 dye as sensitizer, iodine as redox couple electrolytes and a counter electrode with graphite film coated ITO glass. Powder of TiO 2 was synthesized by sol gel route technique. The XRD pattern confirms the anatase and rutile phase of TiO 2 . Crystallite size of TiO 2 powder is 75.5nm. The TiO 2 paste was coated on ITO by doctor blade technique. The FTIR spectrum shows a main peak corresponding to 495cm -1 . However, UV-Visible absorbance of graphite/ITO glass and platinum/ITO glass were obtained as 20-25% and 7-17% respectively in the wavelength range of 300-800nm. The open circuit voltage of DSSC has been observed to be maximum 690.1mV and 619.5mV for platinum and graphite counter electrode respectively. The OCV decay shows the non linear nature. The fill factor values were obtained as 0.60 and 0.50 for platinum and graphite based electrode of DSSCs respectively. The efficiencies of DSSC with platinum/ITO and graphite/ITO electrodes were found to be 1.63% and 0.89% respectively. Keywords: TiO 2 powder, solar cell preparation, performance of DSSCs 1. Introduction Photovoltaic (PV) energy is known to be a cleanest and largest energy source all over the world. But due to the high cost of conventional solar cells, which are mainly based on Si, PV electricity has not been utilized on a large scale for power production. However, Dye sensitized solar cells