Room Temperature Deposition of TiO2 Using Nano Particle Deposition System (NPDS): Application to Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell (DSSC)

To apply for the working electrode of dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC), semiconducting TiO2 powder is deposited on indium tin oxide (ITO)-coated glass. In conventional DSSC fabrication, the high-temperature sintering process should be contained to make the necking of powders, and to assemble powders and,substrate. In this research, do; TiO2 powder is deposited using a nano particle deposition system (NPDS) to make photoelectrode layer through spraying at room temperature conditions. The powder is sprayed through a slit-type nozzle having a 0.4 x 10mm(2) rectangular outlet under atmospheric chamber pressure. Through XRD analysis and FE-SEM observation, the deposition of the semiconductor oxide powder is confirmed and the thickness (7.6 mu m) is measured. The fabricated DSSC has a short circuit current density J(SC) = 3.077mA/cm(2), open circuit voltage V-OC = 0.709V, and energy efficiency eta = 1.24%.This research was supported by Basic Science Research Program (2009-0087380) and the Converging Research Center Program (No. 2009-0082824) through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and technology, and was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korea government (MEST) (No. 2010-0029227)