Issue 3, 2013
From the journal:

Journal of Materials Chemistry A

Current promoted micro-annealing in anodic TiO2 tube arrays and its application in sensitized solar cells†

Yan Xiong,a   Liang Tao,b   Hong Liu*ab  and  Wenzhong Shen*ab  

* Corresponding authors

a Institute of Solar Energy, Department of Physics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dong Chuan Road, Shanghai 200240, People's Republic of China
E-mail: liuhong@sjtu.edu.cn
Fax: +86 21 54743243
Tel: +86 21 54743243

b Laboratory of Condensed Matter Spectroscopy and Opto-Electronic Physics, Key Laboratory of Artificial Structures and Quantum Control (Ministry of Education), Department of Physics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 800 Dong Chuan Road, Shanghai 200240, People's Republic of China
E-mail: wzshen@sjtu.edu.cn
Fax: +86 21 54747552
Tel: +86 21 54747552

Abstract

Crystallization in nanostructured materials is an important basis of solar cells and other nanoscience fields. For instance, crystalline TiO2 for photovoltaic and photocatalysis applications is normally formed by high-temperature annealing above 450 °C for a long period of time (normally more than one hour). In this work, we have established a method to artificially induce crystallization in ordered anodic TiO2 tube arrays at around room temperature for the first time. Assisted by the existence of an electric field in the reaction system, crystallization could take place at a much lower temperature than isothermal annealing. Aided by the low thermal conductivity of TiO2, the sample surface temperature could be limited to an even lower value (below 130 °C). The as-fabricated samples could show significant efficiencies of up to 2.05% after being installed into back-side illuminated dye sensitized solar cells. Furthermore, a nearly monocrystalline-like structure could be formed through some simple physical and chemical manipulation. As a result, an efficiency of 3.51% could be achieved, together with VOC = 0.63 V, JSC = 13.03 mA cm−2, and FF = 0.47. This method can easily realize high quality crystallization in nanostructures like TiO2 tube arrays of a particular size. It can be helpful for the development of new solar cells and other opto-electronic devices, and hopefully for mechanistic studies of other materials as well.

Graphical abstract: Current promoted micro-annealing in anodic TiO2 tube arrays and its application in sensitized solar cells

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Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/C2TA00810F
Article type
Paper
Submitted
23 Oct 2012
Accepted
24 Oct 2012
First published
24 Oct 2012

J. Mater. Chem. A, 2013,1, 783-791

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Current promoted micro-annealing in anodic TiO2 tube arrays and its application in sensitized solar cells

Y. Xiong, L. Tao, H. Liu and W. Shen, J. Mater. Chem. A, 2013, 1, 783 DOI: 10.1039/C2TA00810F

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