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Journal of the Electrochemical Society, Vol.158, No.4, K101-K106, 2011
Plasma Surface Treatments of TiO2 Photoelectrodes for Use in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells
Single crystalline anatase TiO2 nanoparticles were synthesized and sintered to obtain mesoporous TiO2 photoelectrodes. Surface treatment was performed on the resulting TiO2 photoelectrodes using oxygen, nitrogen, or nitrogen+methane (1: 1) plasma. X-ray absorption near-edge structure analysis and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy were used to show the differences among the surface treatments. Dye-sensitized solar cells fabricated from as-sintered and plasma-treated TiO2 photoelectrodes exhibit different cell efficiencies. Compared to the as-sintered sample, the nitrogen+methane plasma treatment enhances the cell efficiency by 24.1%, followed by the oxygen plasma treatment (19.7%) and the nitrogen plasma treatment (5.0%). The differences in the cell efficiency are attributed to the differences in the photoelectrode structures (oxygen vacancy and C-C sp(2) to sp(3) bonding ratio) and the resulting properties (incident photon to conversion efficiency and dye absorption). (C) 2011 The Electrochemical Society. [DOI: 10.1149/1.3547725] All rights reserved.