Structural, optical and electrical studies on zinc doped barium strontium titanate as photo-anode for DSSC device V. Kavitha a , J. Mayandi c , P. Mahalingam b , N. Sethupathi a,⇑ a Department of Physics, Arignar Anna Government Arts College, Namakkal 637002, Tamil Nadu, India b Department of Chemistry, Arignar Anna Government Arts College, Namakkal 637002, Tamil Nadu, India c Department of Materials Science, School of Chemistry, Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai 625021, Tamil Nadu, India article info Article history: Received 3 March 2019 Received in revised form 17 May 2019 Accepted 20 May 2019 Available online xxxx Keywords: BST BSZT Modified sol gel method PV applications abstract Nano crystalline Barium strontium titanate (BST) and zinc doped barium strontium titanate (BSZT) with general formula Ba 0.5x Sr 0.5 Zn x TiO 3 (x = 0, 0.05, 0.10 and 0.15) were synthesized by modified sol–gel method. The synthesized nano crystalline powders were characterized using XRD, UV-DRS, FTIR, FESEM, particle size analysis (PSA) and I-V Photovoltaic tests. The structural, optical and electrical prop- erties of the nano crystalline powders were explored. XRD results confirm the formation of cubic struc- ture and their average crystallite size is estimated. The electrical investigation indicates that the addition of Zn to BST nanoparticles improves the conductivity of the sample, hence it could be potential candidate for the solar cells. Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the Exploring Nanostructures for Enhanced Power Conversion Efficiency of Solar Cells Conference. 1. Introduction In recent times, many attempts are made towards the fabrica- tion of solar cell using functional materials as an alternate solution for the silicon and other devices from copper indium diselenide, cadmium telluride, gallium arsenide and etc. [1]. The search of novel and low cost perovskite structures has been investigated rig- orously. Further, the ferroelectric materials could be competent solar cell materials due to its band gap value ±3 eV with promising conductivity. Some of them are PbTiO 3 , LiTaO 3 , LiNbO 3 , BaTiO 3 , SrBiTaO 3 and PbNbO 3 [2]. The Ba x Sr 1x TiO 3 has great potential to be a better solution for the same because they are chemically, physically and electrically more stable and has Curie temperature in near room temperature compared with other ferroelectric mate- rials [3]. Ba 1x Sr x TiO 3 preparation by various methods such as conven- tional solid state reaction method, oxalate co precipitation method, hydrothermal method, polymeric method and sol–gel method has been demonstrated in the literatures [4–9]. In this work, a modi- fied sol–gel technique was chosen due to its advantages like homogenous distribution of elements on a molecular level, effectiveness with inexpensive equipment, low cost and easy con- trol of microstructure, and crystallization rate of final product and easy to dope other elements [10–15]. The structural and optical investigations are presented for the pure and doped cases of BST. Finally, the as-prepared nano materials were used for the fabrication of DSSC devices. The characteristics of the devices are elaborately discussed in the later sections. 2. Experimental 2.1. Materials and methods AR grade barium acetate (C 4 H 6 BaO 4 - 99.99%), strontium acetateC 4 H 6 O 4 Sr - 99.995%), titanium (IV) isopropoxide (TTIP) (C 12 H 28 O 4 Ti - 99.99%), zinc acetate (ZnC 4 H 6 O 4 - 99.99%), glacial acetic acid (CH 3 COOH - 99.98%), acetyl acetone (C 5 H 8 O 2 - 99.98%), double distilled water (DD) were used as precursor materials with- out further purification for the preparation of BST and zinc doped BST. Barium acetate, strontium acetate and zinc acetate were dis- solved separately in acetic acid and magnetically stirred for 30 min at 40 °C. The barium and strontium solutions were mixed together and the same was magnetically stirred for 10 min. simultaneously, Titanium (IV) isopropoxide (TTIP) was dissolved in ethanol and then acetyl acetone was added to it. The obtained https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2019.05.437 2214-7853/Ó 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the Exploring Nanostructures for Enhanced Power Conversion Efficiency of Solar Cells Conference. ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail address: sethupathi2018research@gmail.com (N. Sethupathi). Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Materials Today: Proceedings journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matpr Please cite this article as: V. Kavitha, J. Mayandi, P. Mahalingam et al., Structural, optical and electrical studies on zinc doped barium strontium titanate as photo-anode for DSSC device, Materials Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2019.05.437