Influence of niobium doping in hierarchically organized titania nanostructure on performance of dye-sensitized solar cells

Niobium doped hierarchically organized TiO ₂ nanostructures composed of 20 nm size anatase nanocrystals were synthesized using pulsed laser deposition (PLD). The Nb doping concentration could be facilely controlled by adjusting the concentration of Nb in target materials. We could investigate the influence of Nb doping in the TiO ₂ photoelectrode on the cell performance of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) by the exclusion of morphological effects using the prepared Nb-doped TiO ₂ anostructures. We found no significant change in short circuit current density (J _sc) as a function of Nb doping concentration. However, open circuit voltage (V _oc) and fill factor (FF) monotonously decrease with increasing Nb concentration. Dark current characteristics of the DSSCs reveal that the decrease in V _oc and FF is attributed to the decrease in shunt resistance due to the increase in conductivity TiO ₂ by Nb doping. However, electrochemical impedance spectra (EIS) analysis at open circuit condition under illumination showed that the resistance at the TiO2/dye/electrolyte interface increases with Nb concentration, revealing that Nb doping suppress the charge recombination at the interface. In addition, electron life time obtained using characteristic frequency in Bode plot increases from 14 msec to 56 msec with increasing Nb concentration from 0 to 1.2 at%. This implies that the improved light harvesting can be achieved by increasing diffusion length through Nb-doping in the conventional TiO ₂ photoelectrode.