Carbon nanoparticle template assisted formation of mesoporous TiO2 photoanodes for quantum dot-sensitized solar cells

While the power conversion efficiency (PCE) of quantum dot-sensitized solar cells (QDSSCs) is still far below their theoretical efficiency, we herein provide a method to improve the solar cell performance by using carbon nanoparticles as a template to construct TiO2 mesoporous photoanodes. Carbon nanoparticles are obtained by microwave synthesis and are further mixed with TiO2 nanoparticles as a paste, and the photoanodes are prepared by spin-coating followed by thermal treatment. In comparison to the photoanodes fabricated from pure TiO2 nanoparticles, the performance of the cells that are prepared from the carbon nanoparticle template assisted mesoporous TiO2 photoanodes show obvious improvement. The best performance is achieved with a carbon nanoparticle content of 15 wt% in the photoanode. A maximum PCE of 4.41% is achieved, giving a 35.3% enhancement in cell efficiency. Systematic investigations are carried out to reveal the role of the carbon nanoparticles in the photoanode performance and the corresponding mechanism is proposed.