In-situ investigation of adsorption of dye and coadsorbates on TiO 2 films using QCM-D, fluorescence and AFM techniques

Abstract

Simultaneous adsorption of dye molecules and coadsorbates is important for the fabrication of high-efficiency dyesensitized solar cells, but its mechanism is not well understood. Herein, we use a quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation technique (QCM-D) to study dynamically and quantitatively the sensitization of TiO2 in situ. We investigate dye loading for a ruthenium(II) polypyridyl complex (Z907), of a triphenylamine-based D-π-A dye (Y123), and of a ullazine sensitizer (JD21), as well as the simultaneous adsorption of the latter two with the coadsorbate chenodeoxycholic acid. By combining the QCM-D technique with fluorescence measurements, we quantify molar ratios between the dye and coadsorbate. Furthermore, we will present first studies using liquid-phase AFM on the adsorbed dye monolayer, thus obtaining complementary microscopic information that may lead to understanding of the adsorption mechanism on the molecular scale. © 2013 SPIE.