Effect of Annealing Temperature and Annealing Time of Semiconducting Material (TiO 2 ) on the Performance of Dye Sensitized Solar Cell

Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs), categorized as 3rd generation photovoltaic devices, have exhibited remarkable advancements in both power conversion efficiency and operational stability. Various processing parameters involved during preparation of photo-anode affects the performance of DSSCs, however annealing temperature and annealing time are most significant. The annealing process of semiconductor layer which is a part of photo-anode, plays a crucial role owing to change the morphology and crystallinity of the same, which directly affects dye adsorption, charge transportation, and overall efficiency of DSSCs. Therefore, the objective of the present study is to investigate the influence of annealing temperature and annealing time of TiO 2 used as a semiconducting material on the performance of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). In this work, Fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) glasses were coated with TiO 2 taken as a semiconducting material and further subjected to different annealing temperatures ranging from 400℃ to 500℃ as well as annealing time 30 to 90 minutes. Thereafter various characterization techniques such as UV-Vis Spectroscopy, PL Spectroscopy, Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy FTIR Spectroscopy were employed to see the electronic properties of the dye used. In order to assess the Photovoltaic performance parameters such as short-circuit current density (Jsc), open-circuit voltage (Voc), fill factor (FF), and power conversion efficiency (PCE) were measured employing all the TiO 2 coated FTO glasses under standard AM 1.5 illumination on solar simulator.