Abstract
Herein, we report the impact of single- and co-doping of nanoparticle TiO 2 films with carbon and nitrogen on the photovoltaic characteristics of their corresponding dye-sensitized solar cell (DSC) devices. Different DSCs with various compositions of the photoanode electrodes are fabricated to study their structural and electronic properties by X-ray diffraction (XRD), diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). We find that the interstitial nitrogen atoms for single N doping have a greater impact on the band gap energy (E g) than the substitutional (to Ti) carbon atoms for single C doping. The short circuit current and efficiency of DSCs are enhanced by C and N single- and co-doping with dominant impression of carbon doping. Furthermore, the electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurements reveal that the electron lifetime, charge transport and recombination resistance of DSCs are improved by C and N single- and co-doping with prominent impact of carbon doping. Therefore, we achieve the highest cell efficiency of 10.2% as a result of a balance between the band gap, surface area, and diffused reflection of the photoanode electrode.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 9453-9460 |
| Journal | New Journal of Chemistry |
| Volume | 41 |
| Issue number | 17 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jan 2017 |
| MoE publication type | Not Eligible |
Funding
M. R. Mohammadi wishes to thank the financial support from the Sharif University of Technology and the Iran National Science Foundation (INSF), and especially the financial support from the Niroo Research Institute (NRI) through a research grant.
