Abstract
We present a detailed study of the infiltration of titanium dioxide (TiO2) nanotubes(NTs) with TiO2 nanoparticles (NPs) for dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The aim is tocombine the merits of the NP’s high dye loading and high light harvestingcapability with the NT’s straight carrier transport path and high electroncollection efficiency to improve the DSSC performance. On infiltrating NTs withTiCl4 solution followed by hydrothermal synthesis, 10 nm size NPs were observed to form a conformaland dense layer on the NT walls. Compared with the bare NT structure, dye loading of thismixed NT and NP structure is more than doubled. The overall photon conversionefficiencies of the fabricated DSSCs are improved by 152%, 107%, and 49% for 8, 13, and20 µm long NTs, respectively. Electron transport and recombination parameters were extractedbased on electrochemical impedance spectroscopy measurements. Although a slightreduction of electron lifetime was observed in the mixed structures due to enhancedrecombination with a larger surface area, the diffusion length is still significantly longerthan the NT length used, suggesting that most electrons are collected. In addition to dyeloading and hence photocurrent increment, the photovoltage and filling factor were alsoimproved in the mixed structure due to a low serial resistance, leading to the enhancementof the overall efficiency.
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