TiO2–Au plasmonic nanocomposite for enhanced dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) performance

Abstract Anatase TiO 2 nanoparticles dressed with gold nanoparticles were synthesized by hydrothermal process by using mixed precursor and controlled conditions. Diffused Reflectance Spectra (DRS) reveal that in addition to the expected TiO 2 interband absorption below 360 nm gold surface plasmon feature occurs near 564 nm. It is shown that the dye sensitized solar cells made using TiO 2 –Au plasmonic nanocomposite yield superior performance with conversion efficiency (CE) of ∼6% (no light harvesting), current density ( J SC ) of ∼13.2 mA/cm 2 , open circuit voltage ( V oc ) of ∼0.74 V and fill factor (FF) 0.61; considerably better than that with only TiO 2 nanoparticles (CE ∼ 5%, J SC  ∼ 12.6 mA/cm 2 , V oc  ∼ 0.70 V, FF ∼ 0.56).