Fabrication and I-V Characteristics of Nanocrystalline Titania Electrode Sensitized by Zinc Phthalocyanine

TiO2 colloids prepared by sol-gel method were autoclaved and then deposited onto a transparent conducting oxide substrate by screen-printing. The TiO2 films electrode was characterized by XRD, SEM, AFM and Alpha-Step profilometer and then sensitized by zinc phthalocyanine (ZnPc), 2,9,16,23-tetracarboxy zinc phthalocyanine (ZnTCPc) and ZnTCPc/lauric acid respectively. Photocurrent density (I) and photovoltage (V) of the electrode were measured with the solar simulator. The ZnTCPc-sensitized electrode was found the best performance with the short-circuit photocurrent density (Isc) 16.66 3A/cm2, the open-circuit photovoltage (Voc) 277.9 mV and the fill factor (FF) 0.39. And the ZnPc-sensitized electrode was found the worst performance with Voc 114.2 mV, Isc 2.26 3A/cm2 and FF 0.31. It was also found that lauric acid promoted Voc of the the ZnTCPc sensitized system.