Enhanced Efficiency in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells Based on TiO2 Nanotube Scattering Layer

Abstract

The essential goal for the production of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) is to improve the light-scattering ability of these films. Therefore, transparent high surface area TiO2 layers and an additional scattering layer consisting of TiO2 nanotubes (TNTs) with relatively larger particles are attractive. The light-scattering abilities of these scattering layers also depend on the relative sizes and the phase of the particles in the layers. TNTs were fabricated by a sol-gel method, and the TiO2 powders were produced through an alkali hydrothermal transformation. The size and structure of the TNTs were adjusted by the hydrothermal temperatures. It was observed that the TiO2 films transformed into the rutile phase, which has a more stable structure, as the temperature increases. This study examined the scattering efficiency in terms of the size, crystal phase, and morphology of the scattering particle. With a 6 mu m-thin titanium dioxide semiconductor layer as a photoelectrode and an additional light-scattering layer (consisting of TNTs-rutile large-size particle), efficiencies of 4.4% were achieved.