Effects of nanostructures on iron oxide based dye sensitized solar cells fabricated on iron foils

• Iron oxide nanowires, nanoflakes and films were successfully grown on Fe foil by thermal oxidation process at different temperature.
• The effects of nanostructures morphology were studied upon different oxidation temperatures.
• The influence of nanostructures surface area were analysed as photoanodes in dye-sensitized solar cells.

Iron oxide nanowires, nanoflakes and film were successfully synthesized by two-step thermal oxidation process by changing oxidation temperatures. Highly aligned and high quantity nanowires and nanoflakes were obtained at 550 °C and 450 °C respectively. Their structural properties were characterized by SEM, XRD and photovoltaic performance by solar simulator. Results show that different structures of Fe2O3 used will influence the photovoltaic performance by the effect of surface area. Fe2O3 in nanowires shape gives the highest efficiency of 0.04% with short circuit current, open circuit voltage and fill factor of 0.25 mA/cm2, 0.42 V and 0.38 respectively. More efficient photoanodes were obtained in Fe2O3 nanowires in dye sensitized solar cells (DSSC) as compared to nanoflakes and films due to the high surface area with smaller diameter and high distribution.

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