Improved photovoltaic performance of dye-sensitized solar cells by Sb-doped TiO2 photoanode

The TiO2 and Sb-doped TiO2 nanoparticles were prepared by the hydrothermal method and were characterized by high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), UV–vis diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and Raman spectroscopy. The photoelectric conversion efficiency of the dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) based on 1 mol% Sb-doped TiO2 electrode achieved 8.13%, which is noticeably higher than that of the undoped DSSCs (7.36%). The improvement of the performance of Sb-doped DSSCs was attribute to the positive shift of the conduction band, which is beneficial to electron injection efficiency from the LUMO of the dye to the TiO2 conduction band. Intensity-modulated photocurrent and photovolatage spectroscopic analysis reveals that the electron transport and recombination have influence on the performance of the DSSCs.