Effects of coverage, water, and defects on Catechol/TiO2 interface

Abstract

Catechol adsorbed on TiO2 is one of the simplest models to explore the relevant properties of dye-sensitized solar cells. However, the effects of water and defects on the electronic levels and the excitonic properties of the catechol/TiO2 interface have been rarely explored. Here, we investigate four catechol/TiO2 interfaces aiming to study the influence of coverage, water, and defects on the electronic levels and the excitonic properties of the catechol/TiO2 interface through the first-principles many-body Green’s function theory. We find that the adsorption of catechol on the rutile (110) surface increases the energies of both the TiO2 valence band maximum and conduction band minimum by approximately 0.7 eV. The increasing coverage and the presence of water can reduce the optical absorption of charge-transfer excitons with maximum oscillator strength. Regarding the reduced hydroxylated TiO2 substrate, the conduction band minimum decreases greatly, resulting in a sub-bandgap of 2.51 eV. The exciton distributions in the four investigated interfaces can spread across several unit cells, especially for the hydroxylated TiO2 substrate. Although the hydroxylated TiO2 substrate leads to a lower open-circuit voltage, it may increase the separation between photogenerated electrons and holes and may therefore be beneficial for improving the photovoltaic efficiency by controlling its concentration. Our results may provide guidance for the design of highly efficient solar cells in future.