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Department of Physics, College of Science, University of Diyala, Diyala, IRAQ
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Department of Applied Science, University of Technology, Baghdad, IRAQ
*Email: nabeelalibakr@yahoo.com
Abstract In this study, Z907 dye sensitized solar cell was fabricated using gold
wavelength of 1064 nm. The prepared nanoparticles were added to Z907 dye to study
their effect on the efficiency of the fabricated dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC). SEM
image showed that the TiO2 layer was porous and the XRD analysis confirmed that it
has a polycrystalline structure belonging to anatase phase. The average particle size of
the gold nanoparticles was estimated by TEM imaging technique and it was found to
be 50 nm. UV-Vis investigation shows that the absorption of the Z907 dye increases
with adding the gold nanoparticles. Solar cells with efficiency as high as 1.284 % and
2.357 % have been achieved without and with Au NPs respectively. The enhanced
performance is attributed to plasmons of Au NPs that may scatter more photons to the
substrate in comparison to the particle free solar cell, leading to increase the optical
path length in the solar cell which subsequently resulted in efficiency enhancement of
about 84 %.
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1 Introduction
The increasing energy demand has promoted the creation of devices that are able to
convert alternative source of energy, such as solar energy [1]. The conversion of solar
radiation to electricity has become more and more important, because sunlight is a clean
and limitless energy source compared to the traditional fossil energy source [2-3]. The
dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) is a low cost solar cell which belongs to the thin film
solar cells [4]. The DSSC can be classified as a photoelectrochemical (PEC) solar cell
due to its utilization of photons, charges, and electrolyte in its basic operation [5]. This
type of solar cells was firstly reported by Gratzel in 1991 and since that time the DSSC
technology has been developed very quickly [1]. Dye-sensitized solar cells have been
fabrication processes, low-cost and environmentally benign [6]. DSSCs are also
attractive due to their transparency and their stylish color design [1]. Conventional
DSSCs consist of five components: transparent conducting oxide (TCO) glass, a wide
band gap semiconductor film such as TiO2, a sensitizer such as Ruthanium dye, redox
electrolyte and a counter electrode such as Pt [7]. Figure 1 shows a schematic diagram
of DSSC.
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In the present decade, the surface modification of TiO2 with noble metal nanoparticles
such as gold (Au) and silver (Ag) have been regarded as an attractive approach to boost
the efficiency of DSSCs. These noble metal nanoparticles play an interesting role in the
DSSC performance, including the enhancement of the absorption coefficient of the dye
and the optical absorption due to surface plasmon resonance [8]. Moreover, they also
play an important role in improving the interfacial charge transfer process, and
In this work, we investigate the performance improvement of Z907 DSSC with addition
2 Experiment
All the materials used in this experiment were supplied from Dyesol
Company/Australia. The materials were as follows: Fluorine Tin Oxide (FTO) coated
glass substrates, TiO2 paste (18-NRT), Z907 dye, organic solvent based electrolyte (EL-
HSE), platinum paste and high purity of 99.99 % gold plate as target. The pulsed laser
NPs) using gold target and ethanol at room temperature. The gold target was placed in
glass vessel containing Z907 dye solution and the ablation was achieved using focused
output of pulsed Nd:YAG laser of 1064 nm wavelength at fluence of 13.27 J/cm2 (type
DELIXI, DZ47-63, C10) operating with a repetition rate of 1 Hz and pulse width of 10
ns. Ablation is carried out with laser. For the preparation of the photoanode, FTO glass
substrate with size of (2.5 cm 2.5 cm) was used. The FTO glass was cleaned in
ultrasonic bath for 5 minutes in distilled water and for 5 minutes in acetone. The TiO2
paste was deposited on FTO glass by Doctor-blade method and the thickness of the
titania layer was determined by the thickness of scotch tape which has a thickness of
10 m placed on the left and right sides of the conductive face of substrate. Then the
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scotch tape was removed and the films were left to dry for 30 minutes in a covered Perti
dish. Thereafter, the films were annealed at 350 oC and 550 C for 30 minutes. Finally,
the photoanodes were allowed to cool at room temperature. After cooling, the
photoanodes were immersed in a 0.25 mM Z907 dye solution with and without Au NPs
for 24 hours. For the preparation of the counter electrode, two holes of 1 mm diameter
were drilled to enable a later injection of electrolyte and platinum (Pt) paste was
deposited on conductive side of FTO glass by Doctor-blade method, and the electrodes
were then annealed at 450 C for 30 minutes. This leads to homogenous distributed
The two electrodes were assembled into a sandwich structure using thermoplastic
sealant, with a thickness of 30 m as spacer. The sealant gasket was placed around TiO2
paste and the counter electrode was put on it while the Pt film faces the TiO2. Finally,
the electrolyte was filled through the holes in the counter electrode by a pipette, and the
The crystallite phase of TiO2 was identified by X-ray diffractometer (Shimadzu 6000,
Japan) using CuK radiation (= 1.5406 ). The surface morphology of TiO2 was
investigated by SEM (JSM-7000F) type. The UVVis absorption spectra of TiO2 layer
and the Z907 dye, with and without Au NPs, were measured by UVVISNIR
performance of the DSSCs was measured using Keithley 2400 multimeter and tungsten
halogen lamp. Based on IV curve, the fill factor (FF) was calculated according to the
following equation:
.
FF (1)
.
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Where Jmax is the maximum photocurrent density, Vmax is maximum photovoltage, Jsc
is the short-circuit photocurrent density and Voc is the open-circuit photovoltage. The
. .
% 100 (2)
Two sets of dye sensitized solar cells has been prepared, each set of six samples, using
the same procedure and conditions described above to check the reproducibility of the
route used in this study and it was found that the photovoltaic performance values of
all cells are the same within an experimental error not more than ~ 8%.
blade technique on FTO glass substrate was carried out by X-ray diffraction (XRD)
technique. Figure 2 shows the XRD diffraction patterns of the as-deposited and
annealed TiO2 films. From the figure, it was confirmed that all patterns are indexed to
the anatase phase with polycrystalline structure according to the ICDD standard card
no. (21-1272) [12]. From the figure, it is clear that all films exhibit diffraction peaks of
anatase crystal planes (101), (004), (200), (105), (211), (204) and (215) and this result
is in agreement with the results reported by Hasan [13]. The highest and strongest peak
of all TiO2 thin films was at 2 25.4 corresponding to (101) direction [14]. The
average crystallite size of TiO2 films of (101) peak was calculated by Scherrers
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Where D is the crystallite size, is the X-ray wavelength of Cu K radiation, is the
full width at half maximum (FWHM) and is the Braggs angle. The calculated
crystallite size of TiO2 films is shown in Table 1. The annealing temperature of 550 C
was chosen as the optimum annealing temperature for the synthesis of TiO2
nanomaterials since it gives the minimum crystallite size. It is reported that the anatase
TiO2 with small size has shown better photocatalytic activity as it leads to increase in
the surface area of TiO2 film and resulting in an increase of dye absorption amount.
[16]. The lattice parameters a and c are calculated using the following equation and they
(4)
The calculated lattice constants a and c are found to agree well with the standard values
Annealed Annealed
TiO2 thin film As-deposited
at 350 C at 550 C
2 (deg) 25.4007 25.3983 25.3720
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hkl 101 101 101
FWHM (rad) 0.009319 0.010327 0.011456
D (nm) 15.252 13.763 12.406
Lattice constants a 3.781 3.787 3.781
()
c 9.476 9.466 9.477
The surface morphology of TiO2 thin film was characterized by SEM. Figure 3 displays
the SEM image of TiO2 film of 10 m thickness which has been deposited on the FTO
glass after annealing at 550 C for 30 minute. The SEM micrograph shows a spongy
shape with reduction in the number of open pores making easy for dye adsorption and
electron transport [10]. The average particle size of TiO2 NPs is about 20-40 nm. The
small particles of TiO2 film have larger surface area and subsequently absorb more dye
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Figure 4 shows the optical absorption spectra of Au NPs prepared by PLAL, Z907 dye
solution and their mixed solutions (1:1 v/v) in the wavelength range of (350-700) nm.
From the figure, it is clear that Au NPs has single absorption peak located at round 530
nm, due to surface plasmon resonance [18], while Z907 dye solution and the mixed
solution have two absorption peaks located at (370 and 510 nm) and (371 and 517 nm)
respectively. It can be noticed that the optical absorption increases when Au NPs were
added to Z907 dye. This enhancement is attributed to the surface plasmon resonance of
Au NPs. Moreover, an absorption tail in the red zone of the Au NPs spectrum was also
Figure 5 illustrates the UVVis absorption spectra of TiO2 films with thickness of 10
m deposited on glass substrates annealed at 550 C and 350 C for 30 minutes under
ambient conditions. It can be noticed that the absorbance increases with increasing
comparison with that of the visible region, due to which TiO2 can be used as UV blocker
in inverted organic solar cells which avoids solar cells from degradation as UV rays
have negative impact on the cells [20]. When annealing temperature is increased, the
absorption edge is shifted to a shorter wavelengths (high energy) and this result is in
agreement with the results reported by Muaz et al. who found that the absorption edge
is shifted to a shorter wavelengths due to the quantum-size effect when the particle size
Tauc model is employed to quantify the optical band gap of TiO2 films using the
equation:
n
h A h Eg (5)
Where is the absorption coefficient, h is the photon energy, Eg is the optical band
gap, A is a constant which does not depend on photon energy and n has four numeric
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values (1/2 for allowed direct, 2 for allowed indirect, 3 for forbidden direct and 3/2 for
forbidden indirect optical transitions) [22]. Figure 6 shows Tauc plots where the direct
band gap of the TiO2 thin films can be estimated by the intercept of the extrapolation
of straight line portion of the plot at (h)2=0. From the figure, it was observed that
direct optical band gap for annealed TiO2 thin films increases from 2.31 eV to 3.12 eV
with the increase in annealing temperature and this result is in agreement with the
results reported byRashad et al. [15]. It is reported that the decrease in the crystallite
size leads to the increase in the band gap energy and caused a gradual shift of the
0.35
Au NPs
0.30
0.25
Absorbance
0.20
0.30
0.20
Z907 Dye + Au NPs
0.10
Wavelength (nm)
Fig. 4 Optical absorption spectra of Au NPs (upper), Z907 dye solution and
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Fig. 5 UV-Vis absorption spectra of TiO2 films
6
9x10
6 as-deposited
8x10 350 OC
6 550 OC
7x10
2
eV)
6
6x10
-1
6
5x10
h cm
6
4x10
6
3x10
6
2x10
6
1x10
0
1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0
h (eV)
To identify the number, shape and size distribution of Au NPs present in the prepared
TEM image and size distribution of Au NPs produced by PLAL method is shown in
Fig. 7a. The TEM image confirmed that the particles are spherical in shape of nanosize
[24]. It can be also observed that interconnect NPs lead to agglomeration. On the basis
of the TEM image the size distribution of NPs was calculated. The precise size
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distribution of NPs is presented in Fig. 7.b, and it is clear that the nanoparticles
diameters are in the range of (10-90) nm and the average particle size is about 50 nm.
Figure 8 shows the current density-voltage characteristics of DSSC with Au NPs. For
Au NPs is also shown. Table 2 lists the cells performance data obtained from the J-V
curve measurements. From the results, it was found that photocurrent density (JSC) and
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open-circuit voltage (VOC) increase for DSSC with Au NPs compared to the DSSC
prepared without Au NPs. An increase in JSC leads directly to an increase in the power
of Au NPs that may scatter more photons to the substrate in comparison to the particle
free solar cell, leading to increase the optical path length in the solar cell [19]. The
efficiency achieved by the DSSC using Au NPs was 2.367 % with an efficiency
4 Conclusions
In this study, DSSCs with and without the addition of Au NPs to the dye have been
successfully synthesized using simple technique. Solar cells with efficiency as high as
DSSC VOC JSC Vmax Jmax
FF (%)
Type (V) (mA/cm2) (V) (mA/cm2)
Without Au 0.513 3.949 0.298 2.155 0.317 1.284
NPs
With Au 0.606 5.859 0.304 3.893 0.333 2.367
NPs
1.284 % and 2.357 % have been achieved without and with Au NPs respectively. The
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enhanced performance is attributed to plasmons of Au NPs that may scatter more
photons to the substrate in comparison to the particle free solar cell, leading to increase
the optical path length in the solar cell which subsequently resulted in efficiency
enhancement of about 84 %.
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