Mesoporous TiO2 Nanowire Film for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell

In this work, TiO2 nanowire arrays were grown on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) glass substrate, and then were converted into mesoporous nanowires (MNWs). The TiO2 MNWs are about 5 μm in length and 30-200 nm in diameter, with mesopores size of 5-30 nm randomly distributed on the NW surface. X-ray diffraction pattern reports show that the NWs are single crystallized rutile TiO2 and oriented grown along [001]. Through further characterization of FT-IR and TG-DSC, we proposed a reasonable explanation for pore existence. After dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) assembly, the photoelectric conversion efficiency (PCE) of MNWs based DSSC achieved 3.2%. It means tenfold enhancement of photoelectric property compare with the as-grown NWs. Furthermore, dye absorb capacity of MNWs can reach up to 4.11 x 10(-8) mol/cm2. However, such MNWs can not only provide quick and efficient electron transmission channel, but also owns big specific surface area to absorb abundant dyes, thus conducive to fabricate solar cell with a high PCE.