A Comparative Performance Study of Plasmon-induced Charge Separation of Au@TiO 2 , Au@Fe 2 O 3 , and Au@ZnO Photocell Thin-films

摘要

The gold colloidal nanoparticles was prepared by citrate reduction from chloroauric acid (HAuCl 4 ·4H 2 O). An ITO glass was coated with nanoporous TiO 2 , Fe 2 O 3 and ZnO by squeegee method. The squeezing coated films were loaded with Au-nanoparticles by depositing technique. The film was characterized by UV-visible transmittance absorption spectroscopy, SEM, XRD, XPS, and EDX techniques. The Pt counter electrode was prepared by a magnetron sputter method on an ITO glass. The semiconductor with Au-loaded film was used as a working electrode whereas Pt film was used as a counter electrode in a solar cell. The charge was separated by short circuit current and an open circuit voltage and the cell efficiency was measured by IPCE analyzer. The comparative photocurrent-performance of different semiconductors loaded with Au-nanoparticles was analysed. Au@TiO 2 , Au@Fe 2 O 3 , Au@ZnO were found to be suitable films for photo-current production having a good efficiency with Au@TiO 2 as the best of the three. ? 2013 JSR Publications. ISSN: 2070-0237 (Print); 2070-0245 (Online). All rights reserved. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/jsr.v5i2.13391 J. Sci. Res. 5 (2), 245-254 (2013)