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Study on CaCO3-coated ZnO nanoparticles based dye sensitized solar cell

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Abstract

Dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have been fabricated using ZnO and CaCO3-coated ZnO nanoparticles. The effect of CaCO3 coating on the performance of DSSC has been investigated. CaCO3-coated ZnO nanoparticles have been synthesized by hydrothermal method. X-ray diffraction patterns of synthesized nanoparticles reveal that the ZnO and CaCO3-coated ZnO nanoparticles have respectively wurtzite and rhomb-centred structure and both having hexagonal phase. Transmission electron microscopy study reveal that ZnO and CaCO3-coated ZnO nanoparticles possess spherical symmetry and have average particle size respectively 6.2 and 6.7 nm. In case of CaCO3/ZnO nanoparticles, the quenching in photoluminescence emission intensity has been attributed to the decrease in recombination rate of photo-generated electron–hole pairs. UV–Vis absorption spectra, confirms that the electrodes fabricated from the CaCO3-coated ZnO nanoparticles have higher absorbance that shows their higher dye adsorbing power. The use of CaCO3 coating has been found to enhance the efficiency of DSSC by over 100 %.

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Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the University Grants Commission (UGC) for the research funding vide sanction letter no. F. No. 39-533/2010 (SR) dated January 7, 2011.

Conflict of interest

We hereby declare that we have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nano Research Lab, School of Physics and Materials Science, Thapar University, Patiala, 147 004, India

    Manveen Kaur & N. K. Verma

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  1. Manveen Kaur
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  2. N. K. Verma
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Correspondence to Manveen Kaur.

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Kaur, M., Verma, N.K. Study on CaCO3-coated ZnO nanoparticles based dye sensitized solar cell. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 24, 4980–4986 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-013-1512-8

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