Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 23, 2025

Ambient Method for the Production of an Ionically Gated Carbon Nanotube Common Cathode in Tandem Organic Solar Cells
Published on: November 5, 2014
Heterostructures of Cut Carbon Nanotube-Filled Array of TiO2 Nanotubes for New Module of Photovoltaic Devices
Siqi Niu1, Wenbin Yang1, Heng Wei1
1Institute of Hybrid Materials, National Center of International Joint Research for Hybrid Materials Technology, National Base of International Sci. & Tech. Cooperation on Hybrid Materials, Qingdao University, 308 Ningxia Road, Qingdao 266071, China.
Abstract:
In this work, a new photovoltaic device was prepared. The device uses titanium (Ti) foil/TiO2 nanotubes as the photoanode and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) as a photosensitizer. Titanium dioxide nanotube arrays (TiO2-NTs) were prepared by one-step anodic oxidation. Cut-MWCNTs with a length of less than 100 nm were obtained by the mixed-acid oxidation of MWCNTs. The two materials were combined to form a TiO2-NTs@cut-MWCNT heterostructure by electrophoresis. TiO2-NTs@cut-MWCNTs were characterized by field-emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), which showed that the two materials were effectively combined. We fabricated the heterostructure into a photovoltaic device, showing an enhanced photocurrent response and an efficiency of 0.0138%, and explained this phenomenon by performing UV-vis absorption spectroscopy and electrochemical tests. It is hoped that this work can provide a reference value for the application of carbon nanotubes in photovoltaic devices.

