Deposition of Lead Sulfide Nanostructure Films on TiO2 Surface via Different Chemical Methods due to Improving Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells Efficiency

• TiO2 surface was fabricated by electrophoresis deposition method.
• PbS nanostructure layers were deposited on the TiO2 surface via different chemical methods.
• The effects of chemical deposition methods on the optical properties of fabricated surfaces were studied.
• Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) were made with the fabricated TiO2/PbS surfaces.
• The effects of different deposition methods on DSSC performance were investigated.

In this work TiO2 P25 was deposited successfully on the FTO glass by electrophoresis method. Different chemical methods were served for deposition of nanosized PbS such as chemical bath deposition (CBD) and successive ion layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR). Also in this paper, nanosized lead sulfide was successfully deposited on TiO2 surface by hydrothermal (HT) and microwave (MW) methods. Also TiO2/PbS nanocomposite was synthesized via a simple hydrothermal method and deposited on FTO glass by doctor blade (DB) technique. Dye sensitized solar cells were fabricated from prepared electrodes, Pt as counter electrode, dye solution and electrolyte. The effect of chemical deposition methods were investigated on surface quality, optical properties and solar cell efficiency. The observation showed that using different chemical methods for deposition of PbS on TiO2 surface is led to fabrication solar cells with different efficiencies and performances. The electrodes were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), cross-section SEM, UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM), cyclic voltammetry (CV) and UV–Vis spectroscopy. Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) made by the fabricated electrodes as working electrode and then were investigated by current density-voltage (J-V) curve and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS).

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