Copper Nanoparticles Incorporated Titanium Dioxide Photoanode for Plasmonic Dye Sensitized Solar Cell
Abstract
The Copper nanoparticles (Cu NPs) show a very important optical property of surface plasmon resonance (SPR). In the present study, the plasmonic copper nanoparticles were introduced into the TiO2 photoanode of a dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC) to enhance its efficiency. The copper nanoparticles were electrochemically deposited from an aqueous solution of copper sulfate on nanoparticulate TiO2 film coated on fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO). Before and after the deposition of copper nanoparticles, the film was soaked in an aqueous “Eosin Y” dye solution. The average crystallite size of the deposited Cu NPs were found to be around 40 nm for several TiO2/Cu samples. The plasmonic DSSC demonstrated an enhancement in the overall efficiency of 85.71% compared to the DSSC without the Cu NPs. There was a significant increase in the photocurrent density (Jsc) of the plasmonic DSSC due to the incorporation of the copper nanoparticles. This increment may be due to the localized surface plasmon resonance effect induced in Cu nanoparticles.