Manufacturing ITO/SnO2 doubled layer for anode electrode of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC)

Abstract

Anode electrodes of dye-sensitized solar cell(DSSC) are transparent conducting oxide films (TCO) which being high thermal stability to be coated with nanocrystalline TiO₂ above sintered at 450–500^oC. One of the TCO films is ITO thin film having the advantage of high transmittance and good electrical conductivity, but not high thermal stability. In this work, SnO₂ thin film was coated on the ITO film by DC magnetron sputtering and their thermal durable properties were studied. Our results showed that ITO/SnO₂ doubled layer on glass with 190 nm SnO₂ thickness could achieve optical transmittance in visible light range above 80%, the sheet resistance about 13 Ω/square, small particle size on surface, being specially stable at 450⁰C. So, this conducting glasses coated TiO₂ layer was suitable to be used as anode electrodes for DSSC.