Zhao Chao, Zhang Jia, Hu Yue, Robertson Neil, Hu Ping An, Child David, Gibson Desmond, Fu Yong Qing
Department of Physics and Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering &Environment, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 8ST, UK.
Thin Film Centre, Scottish Universities Physics Alliance (SUPA), University of the West of Scotland, Paisley, PA1 2BE, UK.
Sci Rep. 2015 Dec 3;5:17750. doi: 10.1038/srep17750.
In this paper, an in-situ microfluidic control unit (MCU) was designed and applied in a hydrothermal synthesis process, which provides an easy way to localize liquid-phase reaction and realize selective synthesis and direct growth of nanostructures as well as their morphology, all in a low-temperature and atmospheric environment. The morphology was controlled through controlling the amount of additivities using the MCU. This achieved a facile fabrication of Al doped ZnO (AZO) nanoflakes vertically grown on flexible polymer substrates with enhanced light scattering and dye loading capabilities. Flexible DSSCs with a significant enhancement (410% compare to ZnO NRs based devices) in power conversion efficiency were obtained using AZO nanoflake photoanodes of 6 μm thick, due to the enhancement in electron mobility and reduction in recombination. This hydrothermal synthesis using the in-situ MCU provides an efficient and scalable technique to synthesize controllable nanostructures with characteristics of easy set-up, low energy consumption and low cost.
本文设计了一种原位微流体控制单元（MCU）并将其应用于水热合成过程中，该单元提供了一种简便的方法，可在低温常压环境下实现液相反应的局部化，实现纳米结构的选择性合成、直接生长及其形态控制。通过使用MCU控制添加剂的量来控制形态。这实现了在柔性聚合物基板上垂直生长的掺铝氧化锌（AZO）纳米片的简便制备，其具有增强的光散射和染料负载能力。使用6μm厚的AZO纳米片光阳极获得了柔性染料敏化太阳能电池（DSSC），其功率转换效率显著提高（与基于氧化锌纳米棒的器件相比提高了410%），这归因于电子迁移率的提高和复合的减少。这种使用原位MCU的水热合成提供了一种高效且可扩展的技术，用于合成具有易于设置、低能耗和低成本特点的可控纳米结构。
