Comparative study of TiO₂ films prepared by EPD and sol-gel techniques and their use in DSSCs
by N. Bsiri; N. Ghrairi; M. Ben Rabha; M. Bouaïcha
International Journal of Nanotechnology (IJNT), Vol. 11, No. 9/10/11, 2014

Abstract: In this work, we give a comparative study of titanium dioxide (TiO₂) films fabricated using the electro-phoretic deposition technique (EPD) and the sol-gel one. The TiO₂ films were elaborated on commercial ITO layers and were used as photo electrodes in dye sensitised solar cells (DSSCs). To fabricate these cells, we used N₃ as the sensitising dye, the electrolyte is a KI/I₂ solution and the counter electrode is a thin aluminium film. The surface of fabricated cells is 2.5 cm². Both scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and XRD characterisations show that the EPD technique leads to the formation of a thick TiO₂ layer, where grains have greater dimensions than the sol-gel one. The transmission spectra measured in the UV-Vis-NIR domain show better values in the case of sol-gel; however, the reflectivity of the film is greater when we use the EPD technique. Measured current-voltage characteristic under AM1.5 illumination of the fabricated DSS cells permits us to conclude that each one of the sol-gel and EPD techniques has not only advantages, but also some weaknesses.

Online publication date: Wed, 14-Jan-2015

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