Growth of nitrogen-doped rutile TiO2 nanorod arrays and their improved performance in all-solid-state solar cells

Abstract

In this study, nitrogen-doped rutile TiO2 nanorod arrays (N-TiO2) were prepared through a facile hydrothermal process for the first time, using ammonia and butyl titanate as nitrogen and titanium source, respectively. The crystal structure and morphology of N-TiO2 were investigated by x-ray diffraction (XRD) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), which showed that the length and diameter of the nanorods as well as the intensity of (0 0 2) diffraction peak increased sharply with doping concentration. According to the x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), only a small amount of nitrogen in reactants was deposited on the surface of TiO2 nanorods, and even less could enter into bulk TiO2 and form O-Ti-N structure. With the increase of doped nitrogen content, photoelectrical conversion efficiency of all-solid-state dye-sensitized solar cells first increased and then decreased, with the highest value of 2.88%, which was much higher than that of un-doped samples (1.57%). The improvement of the solar cells could be mainly attributed to vertical growth of the nanorod caused by the addition of nitrogen. After sintering treatment, the growth of (1 0 1) crystal face further increased the photoelectrical conversion efficiency to about 3.86%. Meanwhile, commercial liquid iodic electrolyte was also chosen to fabricate solar cells for comparison, and an efficiency of 5.36% was reached.