Plasmon-induced efficiency enhancement on dye-sensitized solar cell by a 3D TNW-AuNP layer

Yin-Cheng Yen; Po-Hung Chen; Jing-Zhi Chen; Jau-An Chen; Kuan-Jiuh Lin

doi:10.1021/am507668j

Plasmon-induced efficiency enhancement on dye-sensitized solar cell by a 3D TNW-AuNP layer

ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2015 Jan 28;7(3):1892-8. doi: 10.1021/am507668j. Epub 2015 Jan 16.

Authors

Yin-Cheng Yen¹, Po-Hung Chen, Jing-Zhi Chen, Jau-An Chen, Kuan-Jiuh Lin

Affiliation

¹ Department of Chemistry, National Chung Hsing University , Taichung 40227, Taiwan, Republic of China.

PMID: 25548958
DOI: 10.1021/am507668j

Abstract

A new 3D TNW-AuNP plasmonic electrode consists of antireflective (AR) TiO2 nanowires (TNWs) (∼600 nm thickness) serving as light-harvesting antennae coupling with Au nanoparticles (NPs). A huge red-shift of 55 nm is observed in surface plasmon spectra for the Au (11 nm) plasmonic electrode that has 11 nm size Au NPs, whereby (111) lattice planes have a specific bonding with the TiO2 (101) planes. Remarkable red-shift is mainly attributed to the localized electric field improvement resulting from the plasmonic coupling effect between the Au NPs and the Au-TiO2 hybrids. After TiCl4 treatment, this favorable Au (11 nm) nanostructure takes advantage of harvesting photons to increase the conversion efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) from 6.25% to 9.73%.

Keywords: LSPR; TiO2 nanowire; antireflection; dye-sensitized solar cell; gold; light-harvesting.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't