Light harvesting enhancement by hierarchical Au/TiO_2 microspheres consisted with nanorod units for dye sensitized solar cells

摘要

In this work, we developed the light harvesting enhancement with hierarchical Au/TiO2 microspheres (AuTMS) embedded into photoanode for efficient dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The light scattering capability caused by the large size of AuTMS and plasmonic effect provided by the decoration of Au nanoparticles dually improve the light harvesting of photoanode. The conversion efficiency of 9.60% has been achieved relative to 5.71% for P25, resulting in a 68.13% improvement in photovoltaic performance. The excellent photovoltaic performance could mainly ascribe to the enhancement of J(SC), which results from the accelerated light harvesting and more generated charge carriers in DSSCs. Meanwhile, the nanorod units in AuTMS can act as electron transfer paths, which ensure fast electron transfer and inhibited charge recombination. The light harvesting enhancement through hierarchical Au/TiO2 spheres is supposed to contribute to efficient solar devices.