Double-layered TiO₂ cavity/nanoparticle photoelectrodes for efficient dye-sensitized solar cells

Abstract

TiO₂ nanoparticles (NPs) in the size of ~25 nm, namely P25, are very common material as the electron collecting layer in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). However, the light-scattering improvement of TiO₂ NP photoelectrodes is still a challenge. Here, we built TiO₂ cavities on the top of the TiO₂ NP layer by using carbonaceous microspheres as the template, forming the TiO₂ cavity/nanoparticle (C/NP) photoelectrode for the application in DSSCs. The cavity amount in the TiO₂ C/NP photoelectrode was controlled by adjusting the weight ratio of carbonaceous microspheres. SEM results confirm the successful formation of the double-layered TiO₂ C/NP electrode. J‒V tests show that the optimized TiO₂ C/NP electrode prepared with 25 wt.% carbonaceous microspheres contributes to remarkable improvement of the short-circuit current density (J_sc) and the power conversion efficiency (PCE). The best photovoltaic performance solar cell with the PCE of 9.08% is achieved with the optimized TiO₂ C/NP photoelectrode, which is over 98% higher than that of the TiO₂ NP photoelectrode. Further investigations of UV-vis DRS, IPCE, OCVD, and EIS demonstrate that the competition between light scattering effect and charges recombination in this TiO₂ C/NP photoelectrode is responsible for the PCE enhancement.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

titanium dioxide / dye sensitized solar cell / cavity / light scattering

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Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51862007), the Western Youth Scholars Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Young Doctor Fund Project of Gansu Provincial Department of Education (Grant No. 2022QB-156).

Electronic supplementary information

Supplementary materials can be found in the online version at https://doi.org/10.1007/s11706-023-0638-8.

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