Light scattering management of dye-sensitized solar cells based on double-layered photoanodes aided by uniform TiO2 aggregates

• A new architecture of double-layered TiO2 electrodes is presented.
• The electrode contains two alternate layers of TiO2 nanoparticles and aggregates.
• The aggregates layers are deposited onto the nanocrystalline layer.
• The new design showed improved efficiency compared to conventional cells.

This study presents a new double-layered TiO2 film containing a nanocrystalline under-layer and a uniform, sponge-like light scattering over-layer for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) application. The over-layer is composed of 2-μm-diameter uniform aggregates, containing small nanoparticles with the average grain size of 20 nm. X-ray diffraction reveals that the light scattering layer has a mixture of anatase and rutile phases, whereas the nanocrystalline layer has a pure anatase phase. Ultraviolet–visible (UV–vis) spectra show that the light scattering layer has lower band gap energy than the nanocrystalline under-layer, extending the absorption of TiO2 into visible region. Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy demonstrates that the double-layered electrode enjoyed better light scattering ability. The double-layered DSC shows the highest power conversion efficiency of 7.69% and incident photon-to-current efficiency of 88% as a result of higher light harvesting and less recombination which is demonstrated by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy.

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