Abstract

• The surface morphology of photoanode materials is a crucial role for the utilizing as an active layer in dye sensitized solar cell (DSSC). The formation of surface morphology of zinc-tin oxide (ZTO) nanocomposite depending on the various buffer layer were investigated in this study. ZTO on three different buffer layer such as zinc oxide (ZnO), titanium dioxide (TiO2) and ZTO was grown by chemical bath deposition (CBD) method. The effects of growth time on the structural properties of nanocomposite were also examined by varying the growth time including 5, 10 and 15 h in the CBD process. The structural and morphological properties of the nanocomposite were confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) results. It was found out that the different surface morphology of ZTO was obtained depending on materials of buffer layers. The increasing the growth time, the intensity of ZnO and TiO2 peaks were also increased in ZTO film. The formation of ZTO composite seemed to be larger 15 h than 5 h and 10 h. The influence of different seed buffer layer on the growth of ZnO-TiO2 composite structure was observed by the variation of morphologies. Nonoparticles, nanoflake and mixed nanostructure were formed for the films ZTO/ZnO, ZTO/TiO2 and ZTO/ZTO grown by CBD method.