Fabrication and characterization of a composite ZnO semiconductor as electron transporting layer in dye-sensitized solar cells

ZnO nanocomposites involving nanowires and nanoparticles with a thickness of 4 μm were grown by chemical bath deposition and used as electron transporting layer in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The growth of ZnO nanowires was initially achieved in a zinc nitrate and hexamethylenetetramine aqueous solution on a fluorine-doped tin oxide thin film seeded with ZnO nanoparticles. Subsequently, layered hydroxide zinc acetate (LHZA) nanoparticles were deposited on the nanowires by dip coating in a zinc acetate methanolic solution. A relatively conformal deposit of nanoparticles all along the nanowires was revealed by scanning and transmission electron microscopy. It is shown by X-ray diffraction measurements that a subsequent annealing convert the LHZA nanoparticles into ZnO nanoparticles. The resulting DSSCs present a short circuit current density almost three times higher when the ZnO nanowire interstices were filled with ZnO nanoparticles, which is due to a higher dye loading for a constant device thickness. This is correlated with a very high specific surface area in ZnO nanocomposites, which is 250 times larger than the geometrical surface area. Although a decrease in both the open circuit voltage and the fill factor was shown by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy owing to an increase in electron radiative and nonradiative recombinations, the efficiency of ZnO nanocomposite-based-DSSCs was on average 1.75%, which is 70% higher than for single ZnO nanowire-based-DSSCs.