Dr. Zhi Chen's Group
 Home| Research| Publication| Vita| Opening| Lab| Group Member|  Teaching

Research  Projects

Organic-inorganic lead halide perovskite solar cells

Recently organic-inorganic lead halide perovskite solar cells have attracted a great deal of interest because of potentially low cost and high efficiency. The spin-coating fabrication processes were carried out in a highly controlled environment (a glove box). Recently we fabricated perovskite solar cells with a photo conversion efficiency (PCE) of 18.5% using a DMSO solvent annealing process.


Solar cell structure

             
Cross-section of a solar cell



Current-voltage curve of a solar cell


TiO2 Nanotubes

Working with Dr. Dawei Gong, his postdoctoral research associate, and Prof. Craig Grimes who was then at Kentucky, he pioneered growth of TiO2 nanotubes through anodization of pure titanium, a new type of inorganic oxide nanotubes. As the corresponding author, Prof. Chen first presented this work at Symposium Z3.9, 2001 MRS Fall Meeting, Nov. 26-29, 2001, Boston, MA, USA (http://www.mrs.org/f01-program-z/). Below are some of the unpublished images in 2001. When the processing parameters were changed, gradually the TiO2 nantubes showed up!


 

Growth of high-quality TiO2 nanotubes on FTO

Xiaohui Yang, Xiongbang Wei, Shuanghong Wu, Tao Wu,  Zhi Chen, and Shibin Li, J Mater Sci: Mater Electron (2015) 26:7081–7085

Most high-quality TiO2 nanotube arrays were grown on Ti foils. The quality of TiO2 nanotubes grown directly on FTO glasses was very poor without well organization. We  successfully grew of high-quality TiO2 nanotube arrays directly on FTO glasses.