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标题：From nanocorals to nanorods to nanoflowers nanoarchitecture for efficient dye-sensitized solar cells at relatively low film thickness: All Hydrothermal Process
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作者：Sawanta S. Mali ; Chirayath A. Betty ; Popatrao N. Bhosale 等
期刊名称：Scientific Reports
电子版ISSN：2045-2322
出版年度：2014
卷号：4
DOI：10.1038/srep05451
出版社：Springer Nature
摘要：Simple and low temperature hydrothermal process is employed to synthesize exotic nanostructures of TiO₂. The nanostructures are obtained merely by changing the nature of the precursors and processing parameters. The chloride and isopropoxide salts of titanium are used to grow high quality thin films comprising anatase nanocorals, rutile nanorods and rutile nanoflowers respectively. A novel route of addition of room temperature ionic liquid (RTIL) is used to synthesize hitherto unexplored nano-morphologies. The Bronsted Acidic Ionic Liquid [BAIL] 0.01 M, 1: 3-ethoxycarbonylethyl-1-methyl-imidazolium chloride [CMIM][HSO₄] RTIL directed growth of TiO₂ flowers with bunch of aligned nanorods are obtained. The structural, optical and morphological properties of hydrothermally grown TiO₂ samples are studied with the different characterization techniques. The influence of these exotic nano-morphologies on the performance of dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) is investigated in detail. It is found that [CMIM][HSO₄] can facilitate the formation of novel nanoflower morphology with uniform, dense, and collectively aligned in regular petal like oriented TiO₂ nanorods and hence improves the dye adsorption and the photovoltaic performance of DSSCs, typically in short-circuit photocurrent and power conversion efficiency. A best power conversion efficiency of 6.63% has been achieved on a DSSC based on nanoflowers (TNF) film obtained from a [CMIM][HSO₄] solution.