Enhanced photovoltaic properties of dye-sensitized solar cells using three-component CNF/TiO2/Au heterostructure

Dongxiao Lu; Jinhua Li; Guohui Lu; Longgui Qin; Deye Liu; Peng Sun; Fengmin Liu; Geyu Lu

doi:10.1016/j.jcis.2019.02.005

Enhanced photovoltaic properties of dye-sensitized solar cells using three-component CNF/TiO₂/Au heterostructure

J Colloid Interface Sci. 2019 Apr 15:542:168-176. doi: 10.1016/j.jcis.2019.02.005. Epub 2019 Feb 2.

Authors

Dongxiao Lu¹, Jinhua Li², Guohui Lu³, Longgui Qin⁴, Deye Liu⁴, Peng Sun⁴, Fengmin Liu⁴, Geyu Lu⁵

Affiliations

¹ Nanophotonics and Biophotonics Key Laboratory of Jilin Province, School of Science, Changchun University of Science and Technology, Changchun 130022, PR China; State Key Laboratory of Integrated Optoelectronics, College of Electronic Science and Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, PR China. Electronic address: ludx13@163.com.
² Nanophotonics and Biophotonics Key Laboratory of Jilin Province, School of Science, Changchun University of Science and Technology, Changchun 130022, PR China. Electronic address: jhli_cust@163.com.
³ College of Physics, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, PR China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Integrated Optoelectronics, College of Electronic Science and Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, PR China.
⁵ State Key Laboratory of Integrated Optoelectronics, College of Electronic Science and Engineering, Jilin University, Changchun 130012, PR China. Electronic address: lugy@jlu.edu.cn.

PMID: 30738309
DOI: 10.1016/j.jcis.2019.02.005

Abstract

To further increase the photoelectric efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC), enhancing the light adsorption of photoanode and suppressing the recombination of photo-generated charges are of great importance. Motivated by this, a novel and efficient three-component CNF/TiO₂/Au heterostructure was successfully constructed and employed as an alternative photoanode material. The as-prepared CNF/TiO₂/Au is characterized by conductive carbon nanofiber (CNF) core, uniform TiO₂ outer shell assembled by upright nanorods, and surface modification with well-dispersed Au nanoparticles. To demonstrate the potential application of such material in DSSC, a comparison of photoelectric properties with commercial P25 and binary composite CNF/TiO₂ was carried out. By contrast, the ternary composite CNF/TiO₂/Au exhibited the highest short-circuit photocurrent density of 15.47 mA cm^-2 and photoelectric conversion efficiency of 6.45%, which is about 31% higher than that of the commercial P25-based DSSCs. The great improvement of photoelectric properties for ternary composite CNF/TiO₂/Au might be attributed to not only the conspicuous light adsorption ability derived from the sufficient dye loading of CNF/TiO₂/Au and the surface plasmon resonance of Au nanoparticles, but also the reduced recombination endowed by the conductive CNF core and the heterojunctions at the interface.

Keywords: CNF/TiO(2)/Au heterostructure; Charge separation; Dye-sensitized solar cells; Surface plasmon resonance.