Deposition of cadmium selenide semiconductor nanostructures on TiO2 surface via different chemical methods and investigation of their effects on dye sensitized solar cell efficiency

Abstract

In this work TiO2 P25 is deposited successfully on the fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) glass by electrophoresis (EPD) method. Different chemical methods are served for deposition of nanosized CdSe such as successive ion layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR) and drop-cast. Dye sensitized solar cells are fabricated from prepared electrodes, Pt as counter electrode, dye solution and electrolyte. The effect of chemical deposition methods is investigated on surface quality, optical properties and solar cell efficiency. The electrodes are characterized by X-ray diffraction pattern (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), cross-section SEM, UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM) and UV–vis spectroscopy. Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) made by the fabricated electrodes are investigated by current density–voltage (J–V) curve. It was found that deposition method plays important role in the surface features, film thickness, crystallinity, optical properties and band gap, dye adsorption value and solar cell performance. It also was concluded that SILAR method is the best technique for deposition of CdSe on TiO2 surface for using in dye-sensitized solar cell.