Spray Deposition of Titania Films with Incorporated Crystalline Nanoparticles for All-Solid-State Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells Using P3HT

Spray coating, a simple and low-cost technique for large-scale film deposition, is employed to fabricate mesoporous titania films, which are electron-transporting layers in all-solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). To optimize solar cell performance, presynthesized crystalline titania nanoparticles are introduced into the mesoporous titania films. The composite film morphology is examined with scanning electron microscopy, grazing incidence small-angle X-ray scattering, and nitrogen adsorption-desorption isotherms. The crystal phase and crystallite sizes are verified by X-ray diffraction measurements. The photovoltaic performance of all-solid-state DSSCs is investigated. The findings reveal that an optimal active layer of the all-solid-state DSSC is obtained by including 50 wt% titania nanoparticles, showing a foam-like morphology with an average pore size of 20 nm, featuring an anatase phase, and presenting a surface area of 225.2 m(2) g(-1). The optimized morphology obtained by adding 50 wt% presynthesized crystalline titania nanoparticles yields, correspondingly, the best solar cell efficiency of 2.7 +/- 0.1%.