title: Locally placed nanoscale gold islands film within a TiO2photoanode for enhanced plasmon light absorption in dye sensitized solar cells.
abstract: As metal nanostructures demonstrated extraordinary plasmon resonance, their optical characteristics have widely been investigated in photo-electronic applications. However, there has been no clear demonstration on the location effect of plasmonic metal layer within the photoanode on both optical characteristics and photovoltaic performances. In this research, the gold (Au) nano-islands (NIs) film was embedded at different positions within the TiO2nanoparticulate photoanode in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) to check the effect of plasmon resonance location on the device performance; at the top, in the middle, at the bottom of the TiO2photoanode, and also at all the three positions. The Au NIs were fabricated by annealing a Au thin film at 550 °C. The DSSC having the Au NIs-embedded TiO2photoanode exhibited an increase in short circuit currents (Jsc) and power conversion efficiency (PCE) owing to the plasmon resonance absorption. Thus, the PCE was increased from 5.92% (reference: only TiO2photoanode) to 6.52% when the Au NIs film was solely positioned at the bottom, in the middle or at the top of TiO2film. When the Au NIs films were placed at all the three positions, the Jscwas increased by 16% compared to the reference cell, and consequently the PCE was further increased to 7.01%.
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), Gwangju, 61005 Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Taeheon
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), Gwangju, 61005 Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Yogeenth
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kumaresan
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), Gwangju, 61005 Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Sung Jun
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Cho
authors.affiliation: Advanced Photonics Research Institute (APRI), Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), Gwangju, 61005 Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Chang-Lyoul
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Korea University, Seoul, 02841 Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Heon
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.affiliation: School of Materials Science and Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), Gwangju, 61005 Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Gun Young
authors.initials: GY
authors.lastname: Jung
keywords: Absorption enhancement; Dye-sensitized solar cell; Photoanode; Surface plasmon resonance