Development of Nanopatterned Fluorine-Doped Tin Oxide Electrodes for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells with Improved Light Trapping

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• 作者：Fengli Wang ; Navaneetha K. Subbaiyan ; Qian Wang ; Caitlin Rochford ; Guowei Xu ; Rongtao Lu ; Alan Elliot ; Francis D鈥橲ouza ; Rongqing Hui ; Judy Wu
• 刊名：ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
• 出版年：2012
• 出版时间：March 28, 2012
• 年：2012
• 卷：4
• 期：3
• 页码：1565-1572
• 全文大小：414K
• 年卷期：v.4,no.3(March 28, 2012)
• ISSN：1944-8252

文摘

Transparent conductors (TCs) are an important component of optoelectronic devices and nanoscale engineering of TCs is important for optimization of the device performance through improved light trapping. In this work, patterned periodic arrays of nanopillars and nanolines of pitch size of 700 nm were created on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) using nanoimprint lithography and reactive ion etching using environmentally friendly gases. The patterned FTO exhibits enhanced light trapping as compared to the unpatterned FTO, which agrees well with simulations based on Finite-Difference Time-Domain method for up to a distance of 4 渭m. Dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) fabricated on the patterned FTO exhibited improved performance (fill factor and power conversion efficiency), which can be attributed to enhanced light absorption in the range 400鈥?50 nm. Further, electrochemical impedance measurements revealed lower recombination resistance for the patterned FTO/TiO₂ electrode compared to the unpatterned FTO electrode/TiO₂ electrode as a result of better light capturing properties of patterned FTO. The direct fabrication of nanopatterns on TCs developed in the present study is expected to be a viable scheme for achieving improved performance in many other optoelectronic devices.

Keywords:

photovoltaic; nanopatterned transparent conductors; light scattering; nanoimprint lithography; dye sensitized solar cells; fluorine-doped tin oxide