Electrophoretic deposition (EPD) is the potential process
in high
porosity thin films’ fabrication or complex surface coating
for perovskite photovoltaics. Here, the electrostatic simulation is
introduced to optimize the EPD cell design for the cathodic EPD process
based on functionalized multiwalled carbon nanotubes (f-MWCNTs). The
similarity between the thin film structure and the electric field
simulation is evaluated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and
atomic force microscopy (AFM) results. The thin-film surface at the
edge has a higher roughness (Ra) compared to the center position (16.48
> 10.26 nm). The f-MWCNTs at the edge position tend to be twisted
and bent due to the torque of the electric field. The Raman results
show that f-MWCNTs with low defect density are more easily to be positively
charged and deposited on the ITO surface. The distribution of oxygen
and aluminum atoms in the thin film reveals that the aluminum atoms
tend to have adsorption/electrostatic attraction to the interlayer
defect positions of f-MWCNTs without individually depositing onto
the cathode. Finally, this study can reduce the cost and time for
the scale-up process by optimizing the input parameters for the complete
cathodic electrophoretic deposition process through electric field
inspection.
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