Screen printed multifunctional TiO2 photoanode with plasmonic Ag nanoparticles for performance enhancement of dye sensitized solar cell

• Published in: Materials letters Vol. 276; p. 128194
• Main Authors: Selvapriya, R., Abhijith, T., Ragavendran, V., Sasirekha, V., Reddy, V.S., Mayandi, J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier B.V 01.10.2020; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: Ag nanoparticles; Dye-sensitized solar cells; Dyes; Emission analysis; Field emission microscopy; Materials science; Microsphere TiO2; Microspheres; Nanoparticles; Optical properties; Particle size distribution; Photoanodes; Photovoltaic cells; Plasmonics; Silver; Solar cell; Surface plasmon; Titanium dioxide; Solar cell; Microsphere TiO2; Ag nanoparticles; Surface plasmon
• ISSN: 0167-577X; 1873-4979
• DOI: 10.1016/j.matlet.2020.128194

[Display omitted] •Synthesized TiO2 yielded with combination of microspheres and nanoparticles morphology.•Dye sensitized solar cell based on silver nanoparticles incorporated multifunctional photoanode showed better performance.•3D finite difference time domain simulation unfolds the local field distribution of silver nanoparticles.•Plasmonic dye sensitized solar cell exhibits a power conversion efficiency of 5.62%. Multifunctional TiO2 powder consisting of solid microspheres/nanoparticles (NPs) was obtained in single step hydrothermal method. The insights of mesoporous solid TiO2 microspheres are observed as interconnected particles granules in the field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) investigation. Secondly, Ag nanoparticles (AgNPs) of spherical shaped with narrow size distribution was synthesised by reduction process and its extinction maximum at 413 nm was observed from UV–Vis analysis. Screen printed TiO2 photoanode containing plasmonic AgNPs was utilised to construct the dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC). The efficiency and optical properties of the bare and plasmonic devices were compared. Noticeable improvement in device efficiency is attributed to plasmonic properties of the incorporated AgNPs.