Titanium Dioxide (TiO2) Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

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Author/Creator ORCID

Date

2017

Type of Work

Department

Physics

Program

Master of Science

Citation of Original Publication

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This item is made available by Morgan State University for personal, educational, and research purposes in accordance with Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Other uses may require permission from the copyright owner.

Abstract

With the increasing global energy consumption and diminishing fossil fuels, various renewable and sustainable energies have been harvested in past decades and related devices have been fabricated. Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are the most efficient third-generation solar cells to harvest solar energy into electricity directly. Titanium dioxide (TiO2) based DSSCs were invented in 1988 and have attracted more and more attention since then because of low-cost and high efficiency. TiO2 nanoparticles are one kind of popular anode materials of DSSC because of stability, abundance, environment safety, non-toxicity, and excellent photovoltaic properties. In the project, TiO2 nanoparticles with different crystallographic sizes were produced by ball-milling. Physical properties of the produced TiO2 nanoparticles were characterized by X-ray powder diffraction, UV-visible spectroscopy, and Raman scattering. TiO2-based DSSCs were fabricated and their photovoltaic performances were tested. The effects of TiO2 layer thickness, crystallographic size, and microsphere fillings were investigated. The project enriched our understanding of TiO2-based DSSCs.