Article abstract


Nature Materials 8, 665 - 671 (2009)
Published online: 28 June 2009 | doi:10.1038/nmat2475

Subject Categories: Materials for energy | Porous materials

Selective positioning of organic dyes in a mesoporous inorganic oxide film

Kyungtae Lee1, Se Woong Park1, Min Jae Ko1, Kyungkon Kim1 & Nam-Gyu Park1


Although sequential adsorption of dyes in a single TiO2 electrode is ideal to extend the range of light absorption in dye-sensitized solar cells, high-temperature processing has so far limited its application. We report a method for selective positioning of organic dye molecules with different absorption ranges in a mesoporous TiO2 film by mimicking the concept of the stationary phase and the mobile phase in column chromatography, where polystyrene-filled mesoporous TiO2 film is explored for use as a stationary phase and a Brønsted-base-containing polymer solution is developed for use as a mobile phase for selective desorption of the adsorbed dye. By controlling the desorption and adsorption depth, yellow, red and green dyes were vertically aligned within a TiO2 film, which is confirmed by an electron probe micro-analyser. The external quantum efficiency (EQE) spectrum from a solar cell with three selectively positioned dyes reveals the EQE characteristics of each single-dye cell.

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  1. Solar Cell Research Center, Materials Science and Technology Division, Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), Seoul 136-791, Korea

Correspondence to: Nam-Gyu Park1 e-mail: npark@kist.re.kr



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