Nanostructured titanium dioxide thin film for dye-sensitized solar cell applications / Mohd Khairul Ahmad

Nanostructured Titanium Dioxide (Ti0 2) thin film for Dye-Sensitized Solid State Solar Cell (DSSSC) application has been synthesized using sol-gel method and deposited onto silicon and glass substrates using spin coating technique. The optimized annealing temperature and sol-gel concentration were obtained at 500°C and 0.2M, respectively. Basically, there were four properties studied; surface morphology, structural, electrical and optical properties. Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM) / Scanning Electron microscopy(SEM) were carried out to observe the changes in surface morphologywhenever there are changes on the parameters. X-Ray Diffractions (XRD) characterization of the samples was taken to examine the Ti0 2 crystalline phases and the intensity of nanocrystalline particles in the thin film. I-V measurement using two-point probe equipment was used to observe the electrical properties which include the measuring of the sheet resistance, the resistivity and the conductivity of the Ti0 2 thin film. The optical properties were observed using UV-Vis-NIR spectrophotometer.The thin film transmittance and the band gap energy were also observed using this spectrophotometer.At the end of this research, uniform and homogeneous Ti0 2 thin film has successfully prepared. By controlling the sol-gel concentration, a transparentTi0 2 thin film has been developed which has high transmittance property of above 80%. The Ti0 2 thin films which were annealed at a temperature of 500°C and prepared at 0.2M of sol-gel precursor concentration gave the optimum results. By adding Ti0 2 nanopowder, the surface area and porosity of Ti0 2 thin film is improved, thus good candidate to use in DSSSCapplication.