Abstract
We fabricated well-aligned one-dimensional (1-D) titania nanotubes (TNT) on transparent conducting oxide (TCO) by anodization of Ti foil. Different lengths of TNTs were prepared by varying the applied potential (70 V) time, and we investigated the performance of these TNTs in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), transplanted onto a 6 μm TNP adhesion layer. The fabricated TNTs arrays (length 15 μm) photoelectrode showed 24% increased efficiency compared to the TNP photoelectrode of 17 μm thickness. We further investigated the performances of DSSCs for the TNTs (1 wt%) incorporated TNP photoelectrode and obtained 22% increased efficiency. The increased efficiency of the pure TNTs arrays and TNT-mixed TNP photoelectrodes was attributed to the directional electron movement of TNTs and light scattering effect of the TNT with the decreased rate of back electron transfer. The anodized and fabricated TNTs and DSSCs were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS).
Highlights
The mesoporous nanostructured film of titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles (TNPs) with anatase crystalline polymorph has been used as unique materials over the last two decades as an efficient photoelectrode material for dyesensitized solar cells (DSSCs) [1,2,3]
For the DSSCs of cell type-A, the use of titanium nanotube (TNT) arrays photoelectrode decreased the rate of back electron transfer compared to titanium nanoparticles (TNP) photoelectrode, and our results demonstrated the kT/E values were independent of the nanotube arrays lengths up to 15 μm
The performance of the TNT transplanted DSSCs was compared with the TNP-based DSSCs
Summary
The mesoporous nanostructured film of titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanoparticles (TNPs) with anatase crystalline polymorph has been used as unique materials over the last two decades as an efficient photoelectrode material for dyesensitized solar cells (DSSCs) [1,2,3]. The pioneering work of Mor et al [5] has led to the recent application of well-ordered one-dimensional (1D) titanium nanotube (TNT) arrays for DSSCs. TNTs has attracted enormous interest in DSSCs due to their directional electron movement, photoconversion efficiency of over 16.25% and quantum efficiency of over 80% under 320–400 nm illumination [6], incident photon-to-current conversion efficiency (IPCE) of the N719 adsorbed TNT photoelectrode was 70–80% at 450–650 nm wavelength, and the suppressed recombination with improved collection efficiency [7]. Front-side illuminated DSSCs usually show improved light harvesting compared to the back-side illuminated DSSCs with the same thickness of nanotube arrays, because of the light absorption by the iodine electrolyte and light reflection by platinum (pt) counterelectrode for the latter
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