Sandwich-like design of TiO2 electrodes containing multiple light scattering layers for dye-sensitized solar cells applications

This study comes up with a new architecture of multi-layered photoanode electrodes containing three thick layers (i.e., 4 μm) of nanocrystalline TiO2 particles and three thin layers (i.e., 1 μm) of uniform TiO2 aggregates, which are alternately deposited. The aggregates layers are deposited by a straightforward gel process, developed for the preparation of uniform and sponge-like light scattering layer for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) applications. The aggregates layers are composed of uniform spherical particles with average diameter of 2 μm, containing small nanoparticles with the average grain size of 20 nm. The nanocrystalline layers contain 20-nm-diameter TiO2 nanoparticles. X-ray diffraction (XRD) reveals that the nanocrystalline layers have a pure anatase phase, whereas the aggregates layers show a mixture of anatase and rutile phases. Diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) demonstrates that the multi-layered electrode enjoys better light scattering ability than that of mono-layered electrode due to the incorporation of a thin light scattering layer into the nanocrystalline film. The multi-layered DSC shows the highest power conversion efficiency of 7.85% as a result of higher light harvesting and less recombination which is demonstrated by electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). From IPCE measurement, the external quantum efficiency of the multi-layered cell at 530 nm is equal to 89%, which is higher than that of mono-layered cell (i.e., 78%).