Fabrication of plasmonic dye-sensitized solar cells using ion-implanted photoanodes

Plasmonic dye-sensitized solar cells containing metal nanoparticles suffer from stability issues due to their miscibility with liquid iodine-based electrolytes. To resolve the stability issue, herein, an ion implantation technique was explored to implant metal nanoparticles inside TiO(2), which protected these nanoparticles with a thin coverage of TiO(2) melt and maintained the localized surface plasmon resonance oscillations of the metal nanoparticles to efficiently enhance their light absorption and make them corrosion resistant. Herein, Au nanoparticles were implanted into the TiO(2) matrix up to the penetration depth of 22 nm, and their influence on the structural and optical properties of TiO(2) was studied. Moreover, plasmonic dye-sensitized solar cells were fabricated using N719 dye-loaded Au-implanted TiO(2) photoanodes, and their power conversion efficiency was found to be 44.7% higher than that of the unimplanted TiO(2)-based dye-sensitized solar cells due to the enhanced light absorption of the dye molecules in the vicinity of the localized surface plasmon resonance of Au as well as the efficient electron charge transport at the TiO(2)@Au@N719/electrolyte interface.