Abstract
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•Ag2O-doped BiFeO3hetrostructure was fabricated as photo-anode in DSSCs.•High energy-conversion efficiency 4.25% achieved for 8% Ag2O-doped BiFeO3.•High IPCE and dye loading capacity was noticed after doping with Ag2O nanoparticles with BFO.•The positive shift in flat-band potential, open-circuit voltage decay observed.
In the present study, hierarchical bismuth ferrite (BFO) and Ag2O-doped bismuth ferrite (Ag2O/BFO) nanostructures are successfully fabricated using hydrothermal methods. The fabricated nanostructures were characterized via several analytical techniques. BiFeO3 (BFO) nanoparticles were found to be 30–50 nm in diameter with pure perovskite phase. The nanocomposites were used for the preparation of photoanode to fabricate the dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The results revealed that the doping of Ag2O nanoparticles with BFO improves the transportation of electrons and decreased the recombination of photogenerated charges. Because of these advantages, the DSSC based on the Ag2O/BFO photoanode has been fabricated and shows the efficiency of energy conversion about to 4.25%, which indicates>100% development equated to the DSSCs fabricated using pure BFO nanoparticle based photoanode and prepared under the similar conditions. These results indicate that the BFO based nanocomposites doped with silver oxide can potentially be used as working electrode materials in DSSCs.