Influence of N‐Butyldithiocarbamic Acid Content on the Properties of Sb₂S₃ Sensitized TiO₂ Nanorod Arrays and Photovoltaic Performance of the Corresponding Solar Cells

Abstract

In this paper, Sb 2 S 3 -sensitized TiO 2 nanorod arrays are successfully prepared by the spin-coated and then pyrolysis (denoted as spin-pyrolysis) of Sb 2 S 3 precursor solution in N-Butyldithiocarbamic acid-ethanol (Sb-BDCA complex solution). The influence of precursor solution content with different mole ratios of N-Butyldithiocarbamic acid to Sb 3 + (6, 8 and 10, denoted as BDCA-6, BDCA-8 and BDCA-10, respectively) on the crystalline phase, optical absorption and microstructure of the Sb 2 S 3sensitized TiO 2 nanorod arrays have been investigated systematically. By adjusting the BDCA to Sb 3 + mole ratios, the superior preferred orientation of the (211) plane for Sb 2 S 3 was obtained. The results revealed that the Sb 2 S 3 -sensitized TiO 2 nanorod arrays for BDCA-8 showed the best conductivity and the corresponding solar cell achieved the best PCE of 5.43 % with the open-circuit voltage (V oc ) of 0.53 V, short-circuit photocurrent density (J sc ) of 17.19 mA cm À 2 and fill factor (FF) of 59.21 %. After the Sb 2 S 3 sensitized TiO 2 nanorod array was modified by lauric acid, the PCE of the corresponding solar cells increased from 5.43 % to 5.77 %.