Abstract
Well-arrayed zinc oxide nanorods applied as photoelectrodes for dye-sensitized solar cells were synthesized on an aluminum-doped zinc oxide substrate by the multi-annealing method. In order to improve the chemical stability and surface-to-volume ratio of photoanodes in dye-sensitized solar cells, the synthesized zinc oxide nanorods were coated with pure anatase phase titanium dioxide film using a novel mist chemical vapor deposition method. The effects of the titanium dioxide film on the morphological, structural, optical, and photovoltaic properties of zinc oxide–titanium dioxide core–shell nanorods were investigated. It was found that the diameter and surface-to-volume ratio of zinc oxide nanorods were significantly increased by coating them with titanium dioxide thin film. The power conversion efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells was improved from 1.31% to 2.68% by coating titanium dioxide film onto the surface of zinc oxide nanorods.
Highlights
Since Grätzel et al developed the titanium dioxide (TiO2)-based dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) in 1991 [1], the DSSC has emerged as a promising photovoltaic device, due to its promising power conversion efficiency (PCE), low fabrication cost, and low toxicity [2,3,4,5]
Further improvements in PCE are difficult to achieve due to some disadvantages in current TiO2-based DSSCs, such as the low carrier transportation rate of TiO2 resulting from its low electron mobility, as well as the difficulty in fabricating TiO2 nanostructures with a large surface-to-volume ratio [7,8]
Intertwined TiO2 nanosheets were observed on the surface of the zinc oxide (ZnO)–TiO2 core–shell nanorods, indicating that the TiO2 film was successfully coated onto the surface of the ZnO nanorods
Summary
Since Grätzel et al developed the titanium dioxide (TiO2)-based dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) in 1991 [1], the DSSC has emerged as a promising photovoltaic device, due to its promising power conversion efficiency (PCE), low fabrication cost, and low toxicity [2,3,4,5]. Further improvements in PCE are difficult to achieve due to some disadvantages in current TiO2-based DSSCs, such as the low carrier transportation rate of TiO2 resulting from its low electron mobility, as well as the difficulty in fabricating TiO2 nanostructures with a large surface-to-volume ratio [7,8]. As an alternative photoanode material of DSSCs, ZnO has attracted much attention because it exhibits a similar bandgap and electron injection process from excited dye molecules to TiO2 [12,13]. Compared with TiO2, it is much easier to fabricate ZnO as various nanostructures to enlarge the surface-to-volume ratio [15].
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