title: Panchromatic enhancement of light-harvesting efficiency in dye-sensitized solar cells using thermally annealed Au@SiO₂ triangular nanoprisms.
abstract: Plasmonic enhancement is an attractive method for improving the efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Plasmonic materials with sharp features, such as triangular metal nanoparticles, show stronger plasmonic effects than their spherical analogues; however, these nanoparticles are also often thermally unstable. In this work, we investigated the thermal stability of Au@SiO2 triangular nanoprisms by annealing at different temperatures. Morphological changes were observed at temperatures greater than 250 °C, which resulted in a blue shift of the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR). Annealing at 450 °C led to a further blue shift; however, this resulted in better overlap of the LSPR with the absorption spectrum of black dye. By introducing 0.05% (w/w) Au@SiO2 nanoprisms into DSSCs, we were able to achieve a panchromatic enhancement of the light-harvesting efficiency. This led to a 15% increase in the power conversion efficiency from 3.9 ± 0.6% to 4.4 ± 0.4%.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, University of Saskatchewan , 110 Science Place, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5C9, Canada.
authors.forename: Mahesh K
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Gangishetty
authors.forename: Robert W J
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Scott
authors.forename: Timothy L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Kelly
mesh_terms: D006046:Gold / Q000737:chemistry*; D012822:Silicon Dioxide / Q000737:chemistry*; D013696:Temperature
chemical_list: D006046:Gold; D012822:Silicon Dioxide