Highly crystallized mesoporous TiO2 films and their applications in dye sensitized solar cells

Abstract

By employing mixed inorganic precursors and finely tuning the ageing conditions, crack-free surfactant-templated mesoporous titania films of thickness up to 4 µm have been obtained efficiently. Low angle XRD and TEM show that the mesostructure of the multilayered films was maintained when calcined at the developed temperature of 350 °C, but those films developed crystallinity. A novel type of mesoporous structure featuring highly crystallized anatase framework was produced by a two-step sintering process. Dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) were fabricated from these films. The short circuit photocurrent (I_sc), open circuit voltage (V_oc), and thus the performance of the cell was greatly enhanced when adopting a two-step sintering process, confirming that high crystallinity of the TiO₂ electrode is required for high efficiency conversion.