Surface electrochemical properties of niobium-doped titanium dioxide nanorods and their effect on carrier collection efficiency of dye sensitized solar cells

We explore the effect of Nb-doping on the electronic band structure and microstructure of 1-dimensional rutile TiO2 nanorods as a photoanode of dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The nanorods with different Nb concentration are directly grown on top of fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) substrates and then assembled into DSSCs. Nb-doping is found to greatly enhance the energy conversion efficiency of nanorod-based DSSCs by more than 70%. This improvement in the photon-electron conversion process is attributed to enhanced electron injection and suppressed carrier recombination at the dye–nanorod interface and at the nanorod–FTO interface. Flat band potential analysis shows that Nb-doping shifts the surface potential of the nanorods positively to promote electron injection from the dye sensitizers to the nanorods. In addition, the nanoscale conductive atomic force microscopy (c-AFM) measurement of individual nanorods shows that the high carrier concentration of the Nb-doped nanorods facilitates electron tunneling at the nanorod–FTO interface. New observations in this study indicate that Nb-doping into the nanorods modifies their surface states and the interface resistance between TiO2 and FTO. This facilitates the carrier transport from the excited dye to the FTO film by suppressing carrier recombination and improving electron collection efficiency.