Dye sensitized solar cells fabricated based on nanocomposite photoanodes of TiO2 and AlMo0.5O3 perovskite nanoparticles

Abstract

To enhance the photovoltaic efficiency of dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), tri-layered photoanodes composed of compact, mesoporous and light scattering TiO2 layers were fabricated. Moreover, inorganic AlMo0.5O3 perovskite nanomaterial was synthesized using sol gel method and different AlMo0.5O3/TiO2 nanocomposites were achieved by adding various amounts (0–3.0%) of the AlMo0.5O3 nanoparticles to the mesoporous TiO2 layer in the photoanode. All of the nanocomposite photoanodes and the AlMo0.5O3 nanostructure were characterized by XRD, SEM, EDS, DRS, photoluminescence (PL) and FT-IR analysis techniques. Also, the effect of AlMo0.5O3 nanoparticles on the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of the DSSC devices was examined. The measured optical band gaps of all nanocomposite photoanodes were calculated in the range of 2.68–3.10 eV. The photovoltaic parameters extracted from the J-V plots of the DSSCs illustrated that the champion cell fabricated using mesoporous TiO2 + 0.5%AlMo0.5O3 nanocomposite photoanode had PCE = 5.30% with JSC = 10.96 mA.cm−2, VOC = 0.76 V and FF = 0.64. This result revealed that the TiO2 + 0.5%AlMo0.5O3 composite increased the device efficiency by 2.79 times as compared to the DSSC fabricated using bare TiO2 (champion PCE = 1.90% with JSC = 7.90 mA.cm−2, VOC = 0.67 V and FF = 0.36). Comparing the JSC and VOC values of the champion device with those of the DSSC with bare TiO2 photoanode confirmed that incorporation of the AlMo0.5O3 in TiO2 layer highly improved the charge transfer in the device and simultaneously declined the recombination of charge carriers. Hence, the perovskite AlMo0.5O3 could be suggested as an efficient nanomaterial for application in DSSCs.