Engineering the intermediate band states in amorphous Ti super(3+)-doped TiO sub(2) for hybrid dye-sensitized solar cell applications

• Published in: Journal of materials chemistry. A, Materials for energy and sustainability Vol. 3; no. 21; pp. 11437 - 11443
• Main Authors: Pan, Shusheng, Liu, Xiaolin, Guo, Min, Yu, Siu fung, Huang, Haitao, Fan, Hongtao, Li, Guanghai
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01.05.2015
• Subjects: Dyes; Nanoparticles; Nanostructure; Open circuit voltage; Photovoltaic cells; Semiconductors; Solar cells; Sustainability; Titanium dioxide
• ISSN: 2050-7488; 2050-7496
• DOI: 10.1039/c5ta00956a

Ti super(3+)-doped amorphous TiO sub(2) nanoparticles (a-TiO sub(2):Ti super(3+)), which are an intermediate band semiconductor, were fabricated by high intensity ultraviolet pulsed laser ablation in water. The absorption band of a-TiO sub(2):Ti super(3+) nanoparticles, which appears between the visible and infrared regions, is much wider than that of the rutile TiO sub(2) nanoparticles. The intermediate band, which has a recombination lifetime of 0.71 mu s, is found to be 1.61 eV above the valence band (VB) top of TiO sub(2). It can be shown that the a-TiO sub(2):Ti super(3+)/TiO sub(2) nanotube hybrid dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) not only have a high fill factor and large open circuit voltage, but also have high photovoltaic conversion efficiency as compared to TiO sub(2) nanotube DSSCs. Considering that most of the current solar cells use only a single photoelectric conversion material (PCM), our results will promote the research on multi-PCM hybrid solar cells.