Fabrication of Crystalline Indium Tin Oxide Nanobasket Electrodes using Aluminum Anodic Oxide Template

Abstract

Fabrication of crystalline indium tin oxide (ITO) nanobasket electrodes shaped by an anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) template for better electron conductivity is presented. ITO films were deposited on porous AAO templates by RF magnetron sputtering. The sputter-coated ITO films were characterized by field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) to illustrate the nanobasket morphologies. The compositions of the ITO films were characterized by energy-dispersive X-ray (EDS) analysis. X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis was conducted to evaluate the crystallinity. The crystallinity can be enhanced by annealing at 300 °C. Although the conductivity of the ITO nanobasket film is larger than that of the conventional ITO thin film, the harvest efficiency can be markedly increased due to the nanobasket structure which enables most of the photoexcited electrons to reach their nearest electrode before losing their momentum. The presented ITO nanobasket films can be further used as a more effective electrode material for photovoltaics such as dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs).