Building and Testing a Spin Coater for the Deposition of Thin Films on DSSCs

Abstract

A low cost spin coater was constructed in this work for the deposition of thin films of titanium dioxide (TiO₂) on conductive substrate of FTO (fluoride doped tin oxide) with application on dye sensitized solar cells. The results showed a 95% precision between the speed values obtained by the software of C#sharp language and the spin values observed directly on the device. The TiO₂ films deposited through the spin coater with different angular speeds were characterized by UV-Vis optical spectrum, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and electrical measurements on an active area of 0.25 cm². The DSSCs assembled with the TiO₂ films of double layer deposited by the spin coater had an efficiency value of 12.74%, while the cell with a single layer presented 4.05% efficiency. Therefore, it is concluded that the spin coater assembled in this study at low costs successfully can produce TiO₂ electrodes for DSSCs.

Keywords:
Spin coater; spin coating; DSSCs; thin film; TiO₂