TiO2 and pyrochlore Tm2Ti2O7 based semiconductor as a photoelectrode for dye-sensitized solar cells

This study presents the use of TiO2 nanoparticles with Tm as photoelectrodes in DSSCs. The nanoparticles were annealed at 1173 K and the predominant TiO2 phase was rutile. XRD and Raman spectroscopy revealed the presence of a crystalline pyrochlore phase of the mixed oxide Tm2Ti2O7. In turn, XPS confirmed the presence of Ti4+ and Tm3+, so the inclusion of Tm did not affect the oxidation state of the Ti. UV-Vis spectra showed that the presence of the pyrochlore phase led to new electronic states in the band gap. The use of the pyrochlore phase in the photoelectrode had a positive effect, improving the efficiency of the pure TiO2 cells. The efficiency increased by between 2.32% and 3.16% when pure TiO2 was replaced with a mixture of rutile TiO2 and pyrochlore Tm2Ti2O7, so the controlled use of a pyrochlore phase can produce good results in dye-sensitized solar cells. Another important effect of the pyrochlore phase was to increase the open-circuit voltage values by around 7% and can be explained by the flat band voltage values. The samples with Tm showed two flat band voltage values, which generated two possible electronic injection mechanisms in the cells.