the dye-sensitized solar cell, the bulk of the semiconductor is used solely for charge transport, the photoelectrons are provided from a separate photosensitive dye. Charge separation occurs at the surfaces between the dye, semiconductor and electrolyte. The dye molecules are quite small (nanometer sized), so in order to capture a reasonable amount of the incoming light the layer of dye molecules needs to be made fairly thick, much thicker than the molecules themselves. To address this problem, a nanomaterial is used as a scaffold to hold large numbers of the dye molecules in a 3-D matrix, increasing the number of molecules for any given surface area of cell. In existing designs, this scaffolding is provided by the semiconductor material, which serves double-duty. Counter Electrode Materials One of the most important components of DSSC is the counter electrode. As stated before, the counter electrode is responsible for collecting electrons from the external circuit and introducing them back into the electrolyte to catalyze the reduction reaction of the redox shuttle, generally I3− to I−. Thus, it is important for the counter electrode to not only have high electron conductivity and diffusive ability, but also electrochemical stability, high catalytic activity and appropriate band structure. The most common counter electrode material currently used is platinum in DSSCs, but is not sustainable owing to its high costs and scarce resources. Thus, much research has been focused towards discovering new hybrid and doped materials that can replace platinum with comparable or superior electrocatalytic performance. One such category being widely studied includes chalcogen compounds of cobalt, nickel, and iron (CCNI), particularly the effects of morphology, stoichiometry, and synergy on the resulting performance. It has been found that in addition to the elemental composition of the material, these three parameters greatly impact the resulting counter electrode efficiency. Of course, there are a variety of other materials currently being researched, such as highly mesoporous carbons, tin-based materials, gold nanostructures, as well as lead-based nanocrystals. However, the following section compiles a variety of ongoing research efforts specifically relating to CCNI towards optimizing the DSSC counter electrode performance. Morphology Even with the same composition, morphology of the nanoparticles that make up the counter electrode play such an integral role in determining the efficiency of the overall photovoltaic. Because a material's electrocatalytic potential is highly dependent on the amount of surface area available to facilitate the diffusion and reduction of the redox