Titania nanotube array based photovoltaic cells

Abstract

It has been shown that dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) based on porous titanium dioxide (titania) layers have efficiencies exceeding 10%. Although porous structure has the advantage of large surface area for light harvesting, electron transport through the random nanoparticle network forming a porous film results in electron mobilities which are two orders of magnitude lower compared to the single crystal materials. Therefore, considerable efforts have been made to fabricate DSSC based on one dimensional nanostructures, such as nanowires or nanotubes. Titania nanotube arrays are typically made by anodization of titanium, followed by annealing to improve crystallinity. In this work, we investigated the influence of annealing temperature and annealing atmosphere on the crystal structure, the electron transport, and the solar cell performance of titania nanotube arrays. The titania nanotube arrays were prepared from electrochemically anodized titanium foils and their morphology and crystal structure were characterized by scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy. The crystal phases and the compositions of nanotube arrays were further investigated by X-ray diffraction for different annealing temperatures and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy for different annealing atmospheres. For optimal annealing conditions, the short circuit current density of 4.27 mA/cm 2 and power conversion efficiency of 1.30% could be achieved under AM 1.5 simulated solar irradiation for 2 μm long nanotubes.