Hexagonal TiO2 microplates with superior light scattering for dye-sensitized solar cells

Wenqin Peng; Liyuan Han

doi:10.1039/C2JM34029A

Hexagonal TiO₂ microplates with superior light scattering for dye-sensitized solar cells†

Wenqin Peng^a and Liyuan Han*^ab

* Corresponding authors

^a Photovoltaic Materials Unit, National Institute for Materials Science, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan
E-mail: Han.Liyuan@nims.go.jp
Fax: +81 29-8592304
Tel: +81 29-8592747

^b State Key Laboratory of Metal Matrix Composites, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai, China

Abstract

Anatase TiO₂ microplates with hexagonal shape were synthesized by a hydrothermal method in water–ethanol solvent. The single-crystalline TiO₂ microplate film exhibited high reflectance in the visible region due to the unique planar morphology. When used as the scattering overlayer in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs), such microplates effectively enhanced light harvesting and led to the increase of the photocurrent of the DSCs. As a result, a 16.3% improvement in conversion efficiency was achieved after introducing the TiO₂ microplate scattering layer (7.91%), which also surpassed the commercial scattering overlayer. The comparative experiments between the microplates and TiO₂ microrods further confirmed that such a planar morphology is more beneficial to light scattering and photovoltaic performance. The excellent light-scattering properties of plate-like TiO₂ make it a promising candidate as a scattering material for DSCs.

Supplementary files

Article information

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1039/C2JM34029A
Article type: Paper
Submitted: 21 Jun 2012
Accepted: 17 Aug 2012
First published: 17 Aug 2012

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J. Mater. Chem., 2012,22, 20773-20777

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Hexagonal TiO₂ microplates with superior light scattering for dye-sensitized solar cells

W. Peng and L. Han, J. Mater. Chem., 2012, 22, 20773 DOI: 10.1039/C2JM34029A

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Journal of Materials Chemistry