Physical Structure Effect of TiO2 Compact Layer for Enhanced Photoelectric Efficiencies

One of the urgent challenges for sustainable energy is to hold the global warming back before 2050 in response to the global net-zero mission. An awareness of that is the green energy in demand and the use of solar energy would continue to cover the deficient of clean energy. Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs) would one of the promising photovoltaic technologies for renewable applications since 1990 in balancing an infrastructure cost and electricity production. This study fabricates a planar and stereo TiO2 compact layer on a fluorine-doped tin oxide glass substrate with a Pt layer. Photolithography and physical structural design were used to build planar and stereo structures. The Pt layer gives rise to the protrusive structure of the counter electrode by sputtering and lift-off process. Then, porous semiconductor materials made of fine or coarse TiO₂nanoparticles was coated on the planar and stereo structure. Experimental results reveal that the photoelectric efficiency of the DSCs is higher than that of a DSCs without a specific physical structure one. As a result, the protrusive Pt layer not only can increase the photoelectric efficiencies of DSCs but also serves as a facilitated electron transport channels. In addition, this result was verified by the electrochemical impedance spectra of the two DSCs. The proposed method has advantages in easy fabrication of electrode structures with respect to acceptable production cost.