A theoretical and experimental investigation of Eu-doped ZnO nanorods and its application on dye sensitized solar cells

This paper describes the electrodeposition of Europium-doped Zinc Oxide (ZnO) nanorods as well its application as photoanodes in dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The incorporation of the Europium in the ZnO structure was evidenced by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (X...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Fonseca, André Felipe Vale da, Siqueira, Renato Luiz, Landers, Richard, Ferrari, Jefferson Luis, Marana, Naiara L. [UNESP], Sambrano, Júlio R. [UNESP], La Porta, Felipe de Almeida, Schiavon, Marco Antônio
Tipo de documento: artigo
Estado:Versão publicada
Data de publicação:2018
País:Brasil
Recursos:Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP)
Repositório:Repositório Institucional da UNESP
Idioma:inglês
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.unesp.br:11449/170529
Acesso em linha:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jallcom.2017.12.262
http://hdl.handle.net/11449/170529
Access Level:Acceso aberto
Palavra-chave:DFT calculations
DSSC
Electrodeposition
Eu-doped ZnO
Nanorods
Descrição
Resumo:This paper describes the electrodeposition of Europium-doped Zinc Oxide (ZnO) nanorods as well its application as photoanodes in dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The incorporation of the Europium in the ZnO structure was evidenced by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The DSSCs based on Eu-doped nanorods photoanodes exhibits a higher conversion efficiency value (η) (0.50%) compared to the undoped photoanodes (0.34%). Mott-Schottky analysis was performed and this increase is assigned to the better electronic injection efficiency from the dye to the conduction band of Eu-doped ZnO nanorods, since the Europium incorporation in the ZnO matrix was able to down-shift its conduction band. The improvement on the DSSC performance was around 45%, showing the great potential from the practical point of view. To complement the experimental data, computational simulations were employed based on DFT framework, in order to carry out a detailed analysis of the electronic structures of these materials, as well as to provide an elucidation of its underlying physical mechanism at an atomic level.