Artículos SCI

This paper reports a systematic analysis of the mechanical properties of nanocolumnar TiO2 thin films prepared by evaporation at a glancing geometry. A systematic study of the mechanical properties is carried out by comparing the hardness and the Young's modulus determined by nanoindentation for thin films prepared at different deposition angles and characterized by a tilted nanocolumnar structure and others where the nanocolumns are perpendicular to the substrate or are arranged as zig-zag stacked layers. A correlation between mechanical properties and glazing angle geometry is proposed. Differences in the results are discussed in view of the cross section images obtained by focused ion beam and of the deformed areas. Zig-zagged layers present lower values of hardness and Young's modulus due to the collapse of the angles of the columns, but at the same time this configuration impedes the appearance of fracture or delamination, as observed for tilted columns.

A panchromatic specular reflector based dye solar cell is presented herein. Photovoltaic performance of this novel design is compared to that of cells in which standard diffuse scattering layers are integrated. The capability of the proposed multilayer structures to both emulate the broad band reflection of diffuse scattering layers of standard thickness (around 5 microns) and give rise to similarly high light harvesting and power conversion efficiencies, yet preserving the transparency of the device, is demonstrated. Such white light reflectors are comprised of stacks of different porous optical multilayers, each one displaying a strong reflection in a complementary spectral range, and are designed to leave transmittance unaltered in a narrow red-frequency range in which the sensitized electrode shows negligible absorption, thus allowing us to see through the cell. The reflectance bandwidth achieved is three times as broad as the largest bandwidth previously achieved using any photonic structure integrated into a dye solar cell.