Enhancement in dye-sensitized solar cells based on MgO-coated TiO(2) electrodes by reactive DC magnetron sputtering

A surface modification method was carried out by reactive DC magnetron sputtering to fabricate TiO(2) electrodes coated with insulating MgO for dye-sensitized solar cells. The MgO-coated TiO(2) electrode had been characterized by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDX), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), UV-vis spectrophotometer, cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The study results revealed that the TiO(2) modification increases dye adsorption, decreases trap states and suppresses interfacial recombination. The effects of sputtering MgO for different times on the performance of DSSCs were investigated. It indicated that sputtering MgO for 3 min on TiO(2) increases all cell parameters, resulting in increasing efficiency from 6.45% to 7.57%.