Optical investigation of shell thickness in light scattering SiO2 particle with TiO2 nanoshells and its application in dye sensitized solar cells

•Synthesis of SiO2@TiO2 particles with different shell thicknesses.•Study of scattering properties of particles by DRS analysis.•Achieving better scattering for particles with thinner shell.•Increasing cell efficiency by using particles as a back-scatterer layer in DSSC.

Monodisperse SiO2@TiO2 core/shell submicron particles with specific core size and different shell thicknesses have been successfully synthesized by facile, controllable and reproducible method. The structure and morphology of samples were investigated by EDX, FESEM, FTIR and XRD. Analysis showed monodisperse SiO2 cores and SiO2@TiO2 particles, which are about 350 nm, 370 nm, 390 nm, 405 nm and 420 nm, respectively. DRS graphs of SiO2@TiO2 particles showed effective diffuse reflectance, which had been examined in dye sensitized solar cells as a back-scatterer. So they made 18% increases in cell efficiency compare to cell without back-scatterer.