A novel TiO2 tape for fabricating dye-sensitized solar cells on universal conductive substrates

The present paper describes a new method for manufacturing large scale, stable, transportable, and designable nanostructured porous TiO2 tapes on various substrates for use in photoelectrochemical cells. The method involves predeposition of TiO2 strips on the fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) glass by screen-printing method, peeling off TiO2 strips from the substrate by a novel laser-assisted lift-off technique, sintering the formed TiO2 tapes at 500 °C for 15 min, and compressing the sintered TiO2 tapes on different conductive substrates with a low pressure rolling press to form mechanically stable, electrically conducting, porous nanostructured TiO2 electrodes at room temperature. Photoelectrochemical characteristics of the resulted electrodes are presented. Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) with the as-fabricated TiO2 photoanodes on PET-ITO and FTO glass achieved a conversion efficiency of 4.2% and 6.2%, respectively. The potential use of this new manufacturing method in future DSSC applications is discussed.