Investigation of photovoltaic properties of silver-doped ZnTiO3 nanoparticles

چکیده مقاله

Doping appropriate elements into semiconductor nanoparticles is of vital importance to develop novel materials and functional devices. In this research, the two step sol–gel method was applied to synthesize novel Ag doped ZnTiO3 nanoparticles in the presence of zinc acetate, tetra normal butyl titanate, and silver nitrate as the starting reagents and cetyl alcohol as the solvent. Besides, in order to examine the photovoltaic properties of FTO/TiO2/ ZnTiO3/Pt–FTO and FTO/TiO2/Ag–ZnTiO3/Pt–FTO solar cell structures ZnTiO3 and Ag–ZnTiO3 thin films, which prepared by Doctor’s blade method, were directly deposited on top of the TiO2. Furthermore, the hysteresis loop of the ZnTiO3 nanoparticles at room temperature showed a ferromagnetic behavior. Moreover, photoluminescence results showed that Ag metal ion could change optical band gap of ZnTiO3 nanoparticles and cause red-shift to occur.