SYNTHESIS OF SUB-10 NM TiO2 NANOWIRES FOR THE APPLICATION OF DYE-SENSITIZED SOLAR CELLS

Highly oriented single-crystalline rutile TiO2 nanowires on transparent conductive fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) substrates are prepared by low-temperature hydrothermal method. The small lattice mismatch between FTO substrate and rutile TiO2 promote the epitaxial nucleation and growth of rutile TiO2 nanowires on FTO, with the diameter of 4–6 nm. Due to Van der waals force, the ultrafine nanowires tend to gather together, forming nanowire bundles. Using the ultrafine nanowire bundle array as the photoanode and ruthenium complex (N719) as the sensitizer, dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are assembled. The effect of the TiO2 nanowire gathering on the power conversion of the DSSCs has been investigated. Experimental result shows that the light-to-electricity conversion efficiency is increased by reducing the gathering of the nanowires through introducing toluene into reactant precursors. The DSSCs based on the bundles with smallest average width (i.e., least nanowire gathering) show the highest power conversion efficiency of 3.70%. The relatively high energy conversion efficiency is contributed to the large surface area, which enhances the adsorption of dye molecules.