Surface plasmon enhanced performance of TiO2 photoanode for dye sensitized solar cell using silver nanoparticles

Silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) exhibit the property of Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR). The present study is carried out to investigate the SPR effect of Ag NPs on the TiO2 dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC). The silver nanoparticles were electrochemically deposited from silver nitrate aqueous solution (Ag NO3) on TiO2 film coated on fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO). Before and after the deposition of silver nanoparticles the film was soaked in an aqueous “Rose Bengal” dye solution. It is found that due to the incorporation of plasmonic silver nanoparticles there was a significant increase in the photocurrent density Jsc from 6.3µA/cm2 to 129.6µA/cm2. The plasmonic DSSC demonstrated an enhanced power conversion efficiency of 185% as compared to the DSSC without Ag NPs. This enhancement is mainly due to Ag NPs SPR effect which remarkably enhances the light absorption of the dye and motivates the charge carrier is separated by formation of schottky barrier between Ag NPs and TiO2.