Effect of TiO 2 Mesoporous Layer and Surface Treatments in Determining Efficiencies in Antimony Sulfide-(Sb 2 S 3 ) Sensitized Solar Cells

Abstract

We have fabricated antimony sulfide (Sb 2S 3) sensitized nano-structured solar cells prepared by chemical bath deposition. By incorporating a surface treatment on the antimony sulfide films, an improvement in solar cell performance is observed. The influence of the TiO 2 photoanode structure on solar cell efficiencies is also studied by varying the TiO 2 nanoparticle size. Although smaller nanoparticle size provides a much larger effective surface area for sensitizer attachment, the smaller pore size lead to an over-aggregation of Sb 2S 3 particles on the surface pores. Devices fabricated on particles of size ∼100 nm exhibited an efficiency of 2.3. © 2011 The Electrochemical Society.