<![CDATA[An analytical model is developed to examine the mechanical behavior of a SiO2 interlayer on TiO2 in dye-sensitized solar cells. The model accounts for thermal mismatch-induced stress and introduces a relaxation length to describe stress decay within the interlayer. Results show that stress is highly localized at the interface and decreases exponentially with depth, leading to elastic energy that increases with thickness and approaches saturation. Parametric analysis indicates that both relaxation length and temperature difference strongly influence the magnitude of stored energy. Evaluation of the optimization function reveals that a purely mechanical criterion does not yield a finite optimum thickness, with the minimum occurring at the lower thickness boundary. Dimensionless analysis confirms that system behavior is governed by normalized thickness relative to the relaxation length. The study highlights the necessity of incorporating electrical effects to achieve a physically meaningful design criterion for interlayer optimization in dye-sensitized solar cells.]]>
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