Fabrication of porous and interconnected structures for efficient energy devices via diverse coating methods

I​n this talk, we present a new strategy to fabricate macroporous structures for various energy devices. Macroporous structure provides interconnected paths, which could be electron transport paths in energy devices. Also its large cavities play an important role as scattering voids or spacious room for viscous medium. If it has a periodic and long-range ordered structure, it can modulate a light propagation by a photonic band gap properties. For example, macroporous photoelectrodes having a periodic structured TiO2 film were fabricated using 2D or 3D polystyrene(PS) microspheres array template. Monodisperse PS spheres of various radiuses were used for colloidal array on FTO glasses and two types of photoelectrode structures with different TiO2 materials were investigated respectively. This macroporous structure provides the large surface area leading to the enough adsorption of dye molecules and has a light harvesting effect. A major advantage of this colloidal array template method is that the pore size and its distribution within TiO2 photoelectrodes are determined by those of latex beads, which can be controlled easily. Other studies using these macroporous structures will be introduced showing promising potentials for future applications of transparent conductive films, thermoelectric devices and so on as well as solar cells.匁

Keywords: Slide coating method, colloidal array, macroporous structures