Transmittance optimized nb-doped TiO2/Sn-doped In2O3 multilayered photoelectrodes for dye-sensitized solar cells

초록

We adopt a compact TiO(2) (c-TiO(2)) layer on Nb-doped TiO(2) (NTO)/Sn-doped indium oxide (ITO) multilayered electrodes, which are transparent conducting oxide (TCO) electrodes, to improve their transmittance for high-efficiency dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). An NTO layer was deposited on ITO by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) and then a c-TiO(2) layer was deposited on the NTO/ITO multilayer by spin-coating a sol. The transmittance spectrum of the c-TiO(2)/NTO/ITO multilayered photoelectrodes varied with the thickness of TiO(2). The short circuit current and energy conversion efficiency of the photoelectrodes also varied with the thickness of the c-TiO(2) layer, which is similar behavior to the integrated value of the transmittance in the wavelength range from 500 to 600 nm. Finally, the DSSC employing the 160 nm-thick c-TiO(2) layer exhibited the most improved energy conversion efficiency, compared to the DSSC without the c-TiO(2) layer. Our results demonstrate that the unfavorable optical properties of TCO, e.g. NTO, for DSSCs can be enhanced by the formation of an additional thin layer, e.g. c-TiO(2). (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

키워드