Fabrication of well-arrayed plasmonic mesoporous TiO2/Ag films for dye-sensitized solar cells by multiple-step nanoimprint lithography

Plasmonic cooperation effect of metal nanomaterials at Au–TiO2–Ag interface to enhance photovoltaic performance for dye-sensitized solar cells

“…From figure 2(b) (the magnified image), the film was composed of micro and sub-micro-scale near spherical clusters containing TiO 2 nanoparticles. We found that the differences between the 4f 7/2 and 4f 5/2 peaks for gold (~3.7 eV) as well as between the 3d 5/2 and 3d 3/2 peaks for silver (~6.0 eV) were the same as the reported [23][24][25] values of zero valent gold and silver. TiO 2 / (Au, Ag or Au and Ag) films were characterized by XRD analyses to judge the presence of metal nanoparticles.…”

Ag nanoparticle-decorated 3D flower-like TiO2 hierarchical microstructures composed of ultrathin nanosheets and enhanced photoelectrical conversion properties in dye-sensitized solar cells

“…This indicates that the presence of the Ag nanopatticles in the TiO 2 -DL film can block the direct contact between the I 3 À ions and FTO conduction glass, thereby effectively suppression of the recombination between I 3 À and electrons transferred backward from the TiO 2 films to the electrolyte. The suppressive dark current for the AgeTiO 2 -DL film indicates that the combination between Ag and TiO 2 may cause the conduction band edge of TiO 2 to shift negatively, increasing the gap between the Fermi level of the photoelectrode and the redox potential under illumination which is the definition of photovoltage [43], and as well Ag could act as active sites to inhibit the fast recombination of electronehole pairs [44]. This noticeable variation in dark current is consistent with the JeV curves of the DSSCs, and would also make a contribution to increasing the V oc of DSSCs.…”

Investigation of a gold quantum dot/plasmonic gold nanoparticle system for improvement of organic solar cells

“…36,38 The characteristic frequency peak of each OSC in Bode phase plots was employed to calculate the average electron lifetime (s avg ). 15,39 The average carrier lifetimes are summarized in Table S21 (ESI). † The results are not signicantly different, suggesting that AuNP:PEDOT:PSS and/or AuQD layers might not signicantly affect the carrier lifetime.…”