Fabrication of nanorod TiO2/CU2O heterostructure thin film
Titanium Dioxide (TiO2) has been investigated as a potential material to use in solar cell application. It has good refractive index in visible region, able to function as photocatalyst and produces high transmittance. In this study, the chemical stability of TiO2 and the photon absorbance spectrum...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English English English |
| Published: |
2019
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://eprints.uthm.edu.my/487/1/24p%20FADILAH%20NORAZNI%20FAHRIZAL.pdf http://eprints.uthm.edu.my/487/2/FADILAH%20NORAZNI%20FAHRIZAL%20COPYRIGHT%20DECLARATION.pdf http://eprints.uthm.edu.my/487/3/FADILAH%20NORAZNI%20FAHRIZAL%20WATERMARK.pdf |
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| Summary: | Titanium Dioxide (TiO2) has been investigated as a potential material to use in solar cell application. It has good refractive index in visible region, able to function as photocatalyst and produces high transmittance. In this study, the chemical stability of TiO2 and the photon absorbance spectrum of Copper Oxide (Cu2O) were coupled with their conveniently aligned interface to form a TiO2 /Cu2O heterojunction. However, it was reported that, the combination of planar n-type TiO2/p-type Cu2O was having low efficiency in solar cell application due to the limited area of the heterostructure for efficient charge collection. Therefore, nanorod structure has been suggested to overcome this problem. Nanorods provide stable electrodes and larger surface area for charge transfer reactions. This approach will attribute the enhancement desirable absorption of UV–visible light in natural solar spectrum which improved the surface–interface reactions. The n-TiO2 and p-Cu2O thin film were fabricated using hydrothermal and electrodeposition method, respectively. The fabrication parameters were investigated to obtain the optimum parameters of TiO2 thin film. The TiO2 thin film exhibited optimum 16 hours duration of hydrothermal process with the concentration of TBOT used was 0.05 M. After that, p-Cu2O layer was deposited on nanorod TiO2 thin film for heterojunction formation. Prior to the p-Cu2O deposition on nanorod TiO2/FTO substrate, cyclic voltammetry (CV) measurement was carried out. The p-Cu2O thin film was deposited at -0.4V vs. Ag/AgCl based on the CV measurement result. The effect of deposition time was also investigated during electrodeposition to improve the properties of the p-n junction semiconductor material. P-Cu2O thin film were fabricated by using copper acetate based solution through potentiostatic with pH value of 12.5. The Cu2O was successfully developed on the TiO2 layer with high crystallinity and lower resistance via two-step electrodeposition method. The successful fabrication of nanorods TiO2/Cu2O heterojunction thin film will open a new door of development thin film solar cell application. |
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