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Abstract :
[en] Mesoporous anatase thin films are very promising materials to act as electrode in dye-sensitized solar cells. Randomly oriented nanocrystalline TiO2 particles are usually used to prepare photoelectrodes with a thickness of 10-15 µm. Templated-assisted dip-coating techniques are used to obtain thin films with ordered porosity. However, monolayer films prepared by dip-coating from a solution suffer from a low quantity of active material with a limited surface area, leading to poor photovoltaic performances. Therefore a multilayer deposition process is needed to increase the film thickness along with surface area. Multilayer dip-coating procedures have already been reported but are usually characterized by a lack of linearity in the evolution of parameters (roughness, surface area, PV performances) as the number of layer increases.
In this study, we investigate a dip-coating-based multilayer deposition technique delaying these limitations.
First, the influence of the template on the film organization and porosity is studied in terms of long-range order, percentage of porosity, pore size, surface area and pores connectivity. Different techniques such as transmission electron microscopy (TEM), atmospheric poroellipsometry (AEP) and UV-visible absorption spectroscopy (UV-vis.) have been used to describe the microstructural features of the films.
The film exhibiting the highest dye loading was selected and its thickness gradually increased up to 4 µm. Finally, the photovoltaic performances of the thick films (1 to 4 µm) have been evaluated in combination with the N719 dye and a liquid electrolyte and show excellent efficiency (6.1%) when compared to values reported in the literature. Such mesostructured films were compared in terms of photovoltaic performance with TiO2 nanoparticles films, generally used in DSSC.
Films were further evaluated by Rutherford Backscattering Spectrometry (RBS) as high performance photoelectrode in solid-state DSSCs, in combination with Z907 dye and Spiro-OMeTAD as solid electrolyte.