Abstract

Titanium dioxide films with organized mesoporous structure were investigated as photoanodes in dye sensitized solar cells. High-quality films were grown on FTO supports by implementing the protocol of supramolecular templating with an amphiphilic triblock copolymer, Pluronic P123. Thicker films were obtained by repeated dip-coating and calcination cycles of up to 10 layers. The TiO2 films were crack-free, optically transparent, and had thicknesses exceeding 2 mu m, while still preserving the organized mesoporous morphology. Their roughness factors, determined from Kr-adsorption isotherms, exceeded 500. The sorption of N-3 and N-719 dyes was fitted to a surface coverage of 0.31 molecules/nm(2), which is about one third of the ideal dye loading assumed for the ( 101) anatase face. The solar performance of multilayer films sensitized with N-945 dye scaled linearly for 1-3 layer films, but approached a plateau for thicker films. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

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