Influence of thickness variation of gamma-irradiated DSSC photoanodic TiO2 film on structural, morphological and optical properties

Abstract Properties of photoanodic nanocrystalline oxide film may vary with thickness and gamma irradiation. In this work, photoanodic nanocrystalline TiO 2 films of 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 μm thickness were fabricated on glass substrate as well as irradiated with 10 kGy gamma irradiation dose. Effect of film thickness on morphological, compositional, structural and optical properties of the irradiate film were investigated using scanning electron microscope (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), X-ray diffractometer (XRD) and UV–vis spectrophotometer. The XRD result showed significant change in mole fraction, phase content, crystal size, strain, specific surface area, morphology index, crystallites per unit surface area, and dislocation density of both anatase and rutile phase due to variation of irradiated film thickness. UV–vis-NIR spectroscopy results revealed that the optical bandgap increased with the increase of film thickness and found 2.80, 2.85, 3.15, 3.20, and 3.40 eV for 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 μm film. These studies will be beneficial to more deeply understand the effect of both gamma radiation and variation in film thickness on several properties of photoanodic layer.