Applying thin-wall TiO2 nanotubes to quasi-solid state dye sensitized solar cells

• Main Authors: Lin, Rui-Kuo, 林瑞國
• Other Authors: Chien, Chao-Hsin
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2011
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/83504973878945821843

碩士 === 國立交通大學 === 電子研究所 === 100 === In this work, we studied the influence of nanotube sidewall thickness trimmed by HCl and applied gel electrolyte to it. In order not to etch titanium dioxide nanotube sidewall too fast, the first sintering to enhance the crystallinity of the nanotube is required. Under the hypothesis that it didn’t shorten the length of nanotube, we tuned the sidewall thickness by moderate acidic concentration and treating period. And then, we applied the thin-wall nanotube-arrays as the photoanode to fabricate the front-side illuminated dye-sensitized solar cells. In this thesis, We report an efficient trimming method to fabricating titanium dioxide nanotube-arrays with sidewall thicknesses ranged from 23 nm to 12 nm. The photocurrent density of the dye-sensitized solar cell improved from 13.0 mA/cm2 to 16.2 mA/cm2. Electrical impedance spectroscopy showed a difference between the as-prepared and with thin-wall nanotube-arrays. The thinning of the sidewall of the nanotubes had little influence on the collection of the carriers. The main reason for the improvements on photocurrent density are the more infiltrated electrolyte and the more easily transported ions because of wider voids. At final part, in order to enhance the stability we used two methods to gel the electrolyte. When the electrolyte gelled, it made photocurrent density and conductivity decrease obviously. From EIS, it showed the difference of two different gelation methods of titanium dioxide nanotubes. With nanotube structure, it was a good choice to mix PVDF-HFP with electrolyte and also can enhance the stability more.