Mesophase ordering and structuring of porous titanium dioxide with high surface area and strong light harvesting matrix for dye-sensitized solar cell

Abstract

Dye sensitized solar cells (DSSC) are attractive because they hold promise for devices that are easy to fabricate and inexpensive. In the present work, highly crystalline mesoporous TiO2 has been synthesized by evaporation induced self assembly (EISA) method using triblock copolymer Pluronic P123 as the organic template. The synthesized TiO2 is anatase in nature with a pore size of 10-15 nm. DSSC made from mesoporous TiO2 demonstrated solar conversion efficiency of ∼7%. This comes from the benefits of increased surface roughness, surface area and uniform porosity. In addition, well ordered and crystalline pores provided good sunlight absorption and low recombination path for charge carriers. To further enhance the efficiency of the DSSCs, light scattering centers were introduced in the mesoporous TiO2 film. Nanoparticles light scatterers are introduced to scatter the incoming light and hence to increase the light harvesting capability of the device. A 26% increase in DSSC efficiency was observed with the implementation of scattering centers. © 2011 Materials Research Society.