Inclined Substrate Deposition of Nanostructured TiO2 Thin Films for DSSC Application

Lijian Meng; Tao Yang

doi:10.3390/molecules26113122

Inclined Substrate Deposition of Nanostructured TiO₂ Thin Films for DSSC Application

Molecules. 2021 May 24;26(11):3122. doi: 10.3390/molecules26113122.

Authors

Lijian Meng¹, Tao Yang²

Affiliations

¹ Centre of Innovation in Engineering and Industrial Technology, Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto, Instituto Politécnico do Porto, 4200-072 Porto, Portugal.
² College of New Materials and New Energies, Shenzhen Technology University, Shenzhen 518118, China.

Abstract

Nanostructured TiO₂ films were deposited onto Indium Tin Oxide (ITO) and glass substrates by dc reactive magnetron sputtering at different substrate inclination angles. The structural and optical properties of the deposited films were studied by X-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy and UV-Vis spectrophotometer, respectively. Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) were assembled using these TiO₂ films as photoelectrodes and the effect of the substrate inclination angle in the preparing process of TiO₂ films on the DSSC conversion efficiency was studied.

Keywords: DSSC; TiO2 thin film; dye-sensitized solar cells; glancing angle deposition; inclined substrate deposition; nanostructure; sputtering.