Holistically Optimizing Charge Carrier Dynamics Enables High-Performance Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells and Photodetectors

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Charge carrier events across organic electronics are ubiquitous, and the derived optimization plays a crucial effect on improving the performance of organic electronics. Herein, a two-dimensional material (Ti₃C₂Tx) is incorporated into titanium dioxide (TiO₂) to impart the Ti₃C₂Tx/TiO₂ hybrid film enriched hydroxy group distribution, defect-negligible surface, upshifted work function, and enhanced conductivity yet electron mobility versus the pristine TiO₂ film. Therefore, intensified photon-harvesting ability, reduced charge carrier recombination, and efficient charge carrier collection are realized for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) based on the Ti₃C₂Tx/TiO₂ hybrid photoanode relative to control ones. Consequently, the modified DSSCs based on Z907 deliver superior efficiencies of 10.39 and 29.68% under 100 mW/cm² illumination and ∼1.9 mW/cm² dim light, respectively, being the highest values of Z907-based DSSCs. However, control devices only obtain lower efficiencies of 8.06 and 23.91% when undergoing the abovementioned illumination. On the other hand, the self-powered homologous photodetectors with the hybrid film as an electron-transporting layer present enhanced detectivity (1.69 × 10¹¹ Jones) and a shortened responsivity of 0.26 s versus that of control ones (1.39 × 10¹¹ Jones and 0.35 s). Our work implies that the Ti₃C₂Tx/TiO₂ hybrid film features high potential for improving the performance of organic electronics for its effect of holistically optimizing charge carrier dynamics.