Nanostructured hybrid solar cells based on self-assembled mesoporous titania thin films

Nanocrystalline mesostructured porous titania thin films with optimized coating and thermal curing conditions have been prepared for the first time using spin-coating deposition technique. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) and the grazing incidence small-angle X-ray scattering (GI-SAXS) measurements revealed that the crystallization and diffuse sintering of amorphous TiO2 into anatase are simultaneously starting between 400 and 500 degrees C curing temperature, leading to a gridlike open-pore-shape transformation. The environmental ellipsometric porosimetry (EEP) measurements show that the 550 degrees C-cured TiO2 films exhibit a high porous volume (0.30 cm(3) g(-1)), a large surface area (172 m(2) cm(-3)), and a Young modulus of 1.05 GPa. All solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) based on nanocrystalline mesostructured TiO2 films and poly(3-octylthiophene) as hole conductor allow reproducible achievement of energy conversion efficiencies of about 0.52%. These values, obtained with thin TiO2 films (250 nm), are very promising.