Building and Testing a Spin Coater for the Deposition of Thin Films on DSSCs

Abstract A low cost spin coater was constructed in this work for the deposition of thin films of titanium dioxide (TiO2) on conductive substrate of FTO (fluoride doped tin oxide) with application on dye sensitized solar cells. The results showed a 95% precision between the speed values obtained by the software of C#sharp language and the spin values observed directly on the device. The TiO2 films deposited through the spin coater with different angular speeds were characterized by UV-Vis optical spectrum, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and electrical measurements on an active area of 0.25 cm2. The DSSCs assembled with the TiO2 films of double layer deposited by the spin coater had an efficiency value of 12.74%, while the cell with a single layer presented 4.05% efficiency. Therefore, it is concluded that the spin coater assembled in this study at low costs successfully can produce TiO2 electrodes for DSSCs.

摘要 本研究构建了一台低成本旋涂仪，用于在氟掺杂氧化锡（fluoride doped tin oxide, FTO）导电基底上制备二氧化钛（TiO₂）薄膜，以应用于染料敏化太阳能电池（dye sensitized solar cells, DSSCs）。结果表明，通过C#语言软件获取的转速值与设备直接观测到的旋涂转速之间的精度可达95%。通过该旋涂仪以不同角速度制备的TiO₂薄膜，采用紫外-可见吸收光谱、扫描电子显微镜（SEM）、原子力显微镜（AFM）以及在0.25 cm²活性面积上的电学测试进行了表征。采用该旋涂仪制备的双层TiO₂薄膜组装的DSSCs，其光电转换效率达12.74%；而采用单层TiO₂薄膜的电池效率仅为4.05%。综上，本研究组装的低成本旋涂仪可成功制备用于DSSCs的TiO₂电极。