The Effect of Heat Treatment of TiO2 Nanoparticles on Photovoltaic Performance of Fabricated DSSCs

The present work focuses on the synthesis of mixed phase TiO₂ nanoparticles with reduced band gaps without even being doped. The synthesis was carried out by chemical route followed by heat treatments at different temperatures to favor rutile incorporation in anatase network. The significance of different heat treatment temperatures on the phase composition of TiO₂ nanoparticles and its effect on optical band gap and the photovoltaic performance are analyzed. The thermal analysis, phases, morphology, and energy band gap of as-synthesized TiO₂ nanoparticles have been characterized by DTA/TG, x-ray diffraction, field-emission scanning electron microscope, transmission electron microscope, and UV-Vis-NIR, respectively. The results show the presence of rutile (~15 nm) and anatase phases (~17 nm) in "as-synthesized" TiO₂ nanoparticles. TiO₂ nanoparticles are heat treated for 2 h at 200, 400, and 600 °C in air. It is observed that heat treatment results in higher photoactivity in visible region of the solar radiation and the material demonstrated high photovoltaic performance in conjunction with N-719. The optical band gap values are found to be in the range of 2.59-2.88 eV. The dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) fabricated by TiO₂ nanoparticles, heat treated at 600 ºC show the energy conversion efficiency (η) of 6.08% with high photo current density (J_sc) of 11.76 mA/cm². The work highlighted in this paper represents the realization of simple method of achieving low band gap semiconductors without being doped, for DSSCs applications.