| AVS 54th International Symposium | |
| Thin Film | Thursday Sessions |
| Session TF-ThP |
| Session: | Aspects of Thin Films Poster Session |
| Presenter: | T. Takahashi, University of Toyama, Japan |
| Authors: | M.F. Hossain, University of Toyama, Japan S. Biswas, University of Toyama, Japan T. Takahashi, University of Toyama, Japan Y. Kubota, University of Yokohama City, Japan A. Fujishima, Kanagawa Academy of Science and Technology, Japan |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Dye sensitized solar cells (DSCs) are regarded as a low cost alternative to conventional p-n junction solar cell devices. The high light-to-energy conversion efficiencies achieved with DSCs may be attributed to the nano-porous TiO2 electrode. Among the various techniques for the preparation of TiO2 photo-electrode, the relatively simple sol gel method is the most widely used because of its ability to obtain films with tailored properties on large, curved substrates, and also it is a low temperature process. In our study, the titanium dioxide porous thin film electrodes were deposited on SnO2: F coated glass slides by sol-gel technique; where, tetrabutylorthotitanate was used as a precursor and was hydrolyzed in a water/alcohol/amine mixture. Polyethylene glycol (PEG), with different concentrations, was added to the coating solution as a structure-directing agent, and the films thus prepared were transparent, crack free. In this present investigation, titanium dioxide thin films were prepared with different PEG concentrations and with different numbers (2-8) of coatings. The surface morphology of the films has been observed by atomic force microscope (AFM) and field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM). The morphology of porous TiO2 thin films strongly depends on the concentration of the template (PEG). The decomposition of PEG during high temperature treating is considered to be responsible for the generation of porous structure in the films as compared with TiO2 film without addition of the polymer. It was revealed from optical study that the dye absorption increases with the increase of PEG concentration. Incident photon-to-current efficiency (IPCE) is calculated for all the solar cells with different TiO2 thin films to evaluate the economic viability of this technique. The variation of photoelectric conversion efficiency of the solar cells of TiO2 films deposited with different PEG concentrations is discussed with the analysis of different microstructure of the TiO2 thin films and the corresponding dye-incorporation.