Issue 10, 2018

Polystyrene nanoparticle-templated hollow titania nanosphere monolayers as ordered scaffolds

Abstract

We report a novel multi-step method for the preparation of ordered mesoporous titania scaffolds and show an illustrative example of their application to solar cells. The method is based on (monolayer) colloidal nanosphere lithography that makes use of polystyrene nanoparticles organised at a water–air interface and subsequently transferred onto a solid substrate. A titania precursor solution (titanium(IV) isopropoxide in ethanol) is then drop-cast onto the monolayer and left to “incubate” overnight. Surprisingly, instead of the expected inverse monolayer-structure, a subsequent calcination step of the precursor yields an ordered monolayer of hollow titania nanospheres with a wall thickness of ∼30–50 nm, and a slightly larger diameter than that of the starting spheres. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) characterization of such scaffolds confirm that they consist of nanocrystalline anatase titania, and that any polystyrene/carbon residues in the scaffolds are below the XPS detection level. As an illustrative application we prepared perovskite solar cells incorporating the templated-nanoparticle scaffolds displaying a respectable power conversion efficiency of ∼9%, twice as large as that of our unoptimized “reference” cells (i.e. incorporating conventional mesoporous or compact titania scaffolds), thereby also demonstrating that the process is relatively robust with respect to optimization of the process parameters.

Graphical abstract: Polystyrene nanoparticle-templated hollow titania nanosphere monolayers as ordered scaffolds

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
05 Sep 2017
Accepted
30 Jan 2018
First published
31 Jan 2018
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

J. Mater. Chem. C, 2018,6, 2502-2508

Polystyrene nanoparticle-templated hollow titania nanosphere monolayers as ordered scaffolds

V. Robbiano, G. M. Paternò, G. F. Cotella, T. Fiore, M. Dianetti, M. Scopelliti, F. Brunetti, B. Pignataro and F. Cacialli, J. Mater. Chem. C, 2018, 6, 2502 DOI: 10.1039/C7TC04070A

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