Electron transport and recombination in dye sensitized solar cells fabricated from obliquely sputter deposited and thermally annealed TiO2 films

Abstract

Dye sensitized solar cells based on annealed titanium dioxide films prepared by oblique reactive DC magnetron sputtering have been investigated in detail. Electron transport and recombination were studied using intensity-modulated photocurrent and photovoltage spectroscopy. Electron transport time as well as lifetime were found to increase upon lowering of the light intensity and to increase upon increasing the thickness of the TiO 2 film. The properties are very similar to those observed for solar cells based on colloidal TiO 2 films despite the morphologies being very different. In all cases, films are composed of a porous assembly of TiO 2 nanocrystals. Grain boundaries with associated trap and/or energy barriers may explain the observed transport properties.

Electrochemical characterization of TiO2 blocking layers prepared by reactive DC magnetron sputtering

“…In earlier work we have used reactive sputtering to obtain porous nanocrystalline TiO 2 electrodes that were successfully applied in DSCs [21,22]. By carefully changing the deposition parameters, we were able to obtain dense TiO 2 anatase films.…”

Applications of Taguchi Method for Optimization of Dye Solar Cell Design

“…The iodide concentrations in electrolyte occupied in DSC are 0.5 and 1 M (Oktiawati et al 2014). The TiO 2 passivation layers are at TCO/electrolyte interface as indicated as passivation layer A in Figure 1 and at the TiO 2 photoelectrode film/ electrolyte interface as indicated as passivation layer B in Figure 1 with thickness of 20 nm for each TiO 2 passivation layer (Eskandar et al 2012;Mohamed et al 2015 (Shanmugam et al 2009;Waita et al 2007). …”

Growth of the [110] Oriented TiO2 Nanorods on ITO Substrates by Sputtering Technique for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

“…Gomez et al (2000a,b) have studied the DSSC assembled with TiO 2 electrode prepared by sputtering technique in the beginning of this century. After that, some works on DSSC based on TiO 2 films prepared by sputtering from the other groups have been reported (Sung and Kim, 2007;Waita et al, 2007;Hossain et al, 2008;Kang et al, 2008). However, so far the energy conversion efficiency is still low for the DSSCs based on sputtered TiO 2 films as it cannot adsorb a large amount of dye molecules because of the lower specific surface area resulting from the compact structure, which is a typical characteristic of www.frontiersin.org the sputtered films.…”