Tin doping speeds up hole transfer during light-driven water oxidation at hematite photoanodes.

Numerous studies have shown that the performance of hematite photoanodes for light-driven water splitting is improved substantially by doping with various metals, including tin. Although the enhanced performance has commonly been attributed to bulk effects such as increased conductivity, recent studies have noted an impact of doping on the efficiency of the interfacial transfer of holes involved in the oxygen evolution reaction. However, the methods used were not able to elucidate the origin of this improved efficiency, which could originate from passivation of surface electron-hole recombination or catalysis of the oxygen evolution reaction. The present study used intensity-modulated photocurrent spectroscopy (IMPS), which is a powerful small amplitude perturbation technique that can de-convolute the rate constants for charge transfer and recombination at illuminated semiconductor electrodes. The method was applied to examine the kinetics of water oxidation on thin solution-processed hematite model photoanodes, which can be Sn-doped without morphological change. We observed a significant increase in photocurrent upon Sn-doping, which is attributed to a higher transfer efficiency. The kinetic data obtained using IMPS show that Sn-doping brings about a more than tenfold increase in the rate constant for water oxidation by photogenerated holes. This result provides the first demonstration that Sn-doping speeds up water oxidation on hematite by increasing the rate constant for hole transfer.

Highly soluble energy relay dyes for dye-sensitized solar cells.

High solubility is a requirement for energy relay dyes (ERDs) to absorb a large portion of incident light and significantly improve the efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Two benzonitrile-soluble ERDs, BL302 and BL315, were synthesized, characterized, and resulted in a 65% increase in the efficiency of TT1-sensitized DSSCs. The high solubility (180 mM) of these ERDs allows for absorption of over 95% of incident light at their peak wavelength. The overall power conversion efficiency of DSSCs with BL302 and BL315 was found to be limited by their energy transfer efficiency of approximately 70%. Losses due to large pore size, dynamic collisional quenching of the ERD, energy transfer to desorbed sensitizing dyes and static quenching by complex formation were investigated and it was found that a majority of the losses are caused by the formation of statically quenched ERDs in solution.

Ultrasmall titania nanocrystals and their direct assembly into mesoporous structures showing fast lithium insertion.

Ultrasmall and highly soluble anatase nanoparticles were synthesized from TiCl(4) using tert-butyl alcohol as a new reaction medium. This synthetic protocol widens the scope of nonaqueous sol-gel methods to TiO(2) nanoparticles of around 3 nm with excellent dispersibility in ethanol and tert-butanol. Microwave heating was found to enhance the crystallinity of the nanoparticles and to drastically shorten the reaction time to less than 1 h at temperatures as low as 50 degrees C. The extremely small size of the nanoparticles and their dispersibility make it possible to use commercial Pluronic surfactants for evaporation-induced self-assembly of the nanoparticulate building blocks into periodic mesoporous structures. A solution of particles after synthesis can be directly used for preparation of mesoporous films without the need for particle separation. The mesoporous titania coatings fabricated using this one-pot procedure are crystalline and exhibit high surface areas of up to 300 m(2)/g. The advantages of the retention of the mesoporous order with extremely thin nanocrystalline walls were shown by electrochemical lithium insertion. The films made using microwave-treated nanoparticles showed supercapacitive behavior with high maximum capacitance due to quantitative lithiation with a 10-fold increase of charging rates compared to a standard reference electrode made from 20 nm anatase particles.

Electron collection in host-guest nanostructured hematite photoanodes for water splitting: the influence of scaffold doping density.

Nanostructuring has proven to be a successful strategy in overcoming the trade-off between light absorption and hole transport to the solid/electrolyte interface in hematite photoanodes for water splitting. The suggestion that poor electron (majority carrier) collection hinders the performance of nanostructured hematite electrodes has led to the emergence of host-guest architectures in which the absorber layer is deposited onto a transparent high-surface-area electron collector. To date, however, state of the art nanostructured hematite electrodes still outperform their host-guest counterparts, and a quantitative evaluation of the benefits of the host-guest architecture is still lacking. In this paper, we examine the impact of host-guest architectures by comparing nanostructured tin-doped hematite electrodes with hematite nanoparticle layers coated onto two types of conducting macroporous SnO2 scaffolds. Analysis of the external quantum efficiency spectra for substrate (SI) and electrolyte side (EI) illumination reveals that the electron diffusion length in the host-guest electrodes based on an undoped SnO2 scaffold is increased substantially relative to the nanostructured hematite electrode without a supporting scaffold. Nevertheless, electron collection is still incomplete for EI illumination. By contrast, an electron collection efficiency of 100% is achieved by fabricating the scaffold using antimony-doped SnO2, showing that the scaffold conductivity is crucial for the device performance.

Efficient Planar Heterojunction Perovskite Solar Cells Based on Formamidinium Lead Bromide.

The development of medium-bandgap solar cell absorber materials is of interest for the design of devices such as tandem solar cells and building-integrated photovoltaics. The recently developed perovskite solar cells can be suitable candidates for these applications. At present, wide bandgap alkylammonium lead bromide perovskite absorbers require a high-temperature sintered mesoporous TiO2 photoanode in order to function efficiently, which makes them unsuitable for some of the above applications. Here, we present for the first time highly efficient wide bandgap planar heterojunction solar cells based on the structurally related formamidinium lead bromide. We show that this material exhibits much longer diffusion lengths of the photoexcited species than its methylammonium counterpart. This results in planar heterojunction solar cells exhibiting power conversion efficiencies approaching 7%. Hence, formamidinium lead bromide is a strong candidate as a wide bandgap absorber in perovskite solar cells.

Niobium-doped titania nanoparticles: synthesis and assembly into mesoporous films and electrical conductivity.

Crystalline niobium-doped titania nanoparticles were synthesized via solvothermal procedures using tert-butyl alcohol as a novel reaction medium, and their assembly into mesoporous films was investigated. The solvothermal procedure enables the preparation of crystalline doped and undoped nonagglomerated titania nanoparticles, whose size can be controlled from 4 to 15 nm by changing the reaction temperature and time. The anatase lattice of these particles can incorporate more than 20 mol % of Nb ions. The nanoparticles can be easily dispersed at high concentrations in THF to form stable colloidal suspensions and can be assembled into uniform porous mesostructures directed by the commercial Pluronic block copolymer F127. The resulting mesoporous films show a regular mesostructure with a d spacing of about 17 nm, a uniform pore size of about 10 nm with crystalline walls, a high porosity of 43%, and a large surface area of 190 m(2) cm(-3). Substitutional doping with niobium ions drastically increases the electrical conductivity of the titania particles. The electrical conductivity of as-prepared nanoparticles containing 20 mol % of Nb is 2 x 10(-5) S cm(-1); it increases to 0.25 S cm(-1) after treatment at 600 °C in nitrogen.