Agency for Defense Development, 160, Bugyuseong-daero 488beon-gil, Yoseong-gu, Daejeon 305-152, Korea.
Nanoscale. 2013 Sep 7;5(17):7825-30. doi: 10.1039/c3nr01889j.
A key challenge to the industrial application of nanotechnology is the development of fabrication processes for functional devices based on nanomaterials which can be scaled up for mass production. In this report, we disclose the results of non-thermal radio-frequency (rf) atmospheric pressure plasma (APP) based deposition of TiO2 nanoparticles on a flexible substrate for the fabrication of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Operating at 190 °C without a vacuum enclosure, the APP method can avoid thermal damage and vacuum compatibility restrictions and utilize roll-to-roll processing over a large area. The various analyses of the TiO2 films demonstrate that superior film properties can be obtained by the non-thermal APP method when compared with the thermal sintering process operating at 450 °C. The crystallinity of the anatase TiO2 nanoparticles is significantly improved without thermal agglomeration, while the surface defects such as Ti(3+) ions are eliminated, thus providing efficient charge collecting properties for solar cells. Finally, we successfully fabricated a flexible DSSC with an energy conversion efficiency of 4.2% using a transparent plastic substrate. This work demonstrates the potential of non-thermal APP technology in the area of device-level, nano-enabled material manufacturing.
纳米技术产业化的一个关键挑战是开发基于纳米材料的功能器件制造工艺，这些工艺可以进行规模化生产。在本报告中，我们披露了基于非热射频（rf）大气压等离子体（APP）在柔性基底上沉积 TiO2 纳米粒子的结果，用于制造染料敏化太阳能电池（DSSC）。该 APP 方法在 190°C 下无需真空密封即可操作，可避免热损伤和真空兼容性限制，并可在大面积上进行卷对卷处理。对 TiO2 薄膜的各种分析表明，与在 450°C 下运行的热烧结工艺相比，非热 APP 方法可以获得更好的薄膜性能。锐钛矿 TiO2 纳米粒子的结晶度显著提高，而没有热团聚，同时消除了表面缺陷，如 Ti(3+)离子，从而为太阳能电池提供了高效的电荷收集性能。最后，我们使用透明塑料基板成功制造了能量转换效率为 4.2%的柔性 DSSC。这项工作证明了非热 APP 技术在器件级、纳米增强材料制造领域的潜力。
