Transfer and assembly of large area TiO2 nanotube arrays onto conductive glass for dye sensitized solar cells

Highly ordered titanium oxide nanotube arrays are synthesized by a two-step anodic oxidation of pure titanium foil at constant voltage. It is found that the length of nanotube arrays firstly increased rapidly with the anodization time, and then the growth rate gradually slowed down with further increasing the anodization time. The mechanism of anodization time-dependent tube length growth is discussed. Large area free-standing TiO2 nanotube (TNT) arrays are detached from the underlying Ti foil and transferred onto the fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) conductive glass substrates to serve as the photoanodes of the dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). The photoelectric performance of the DSSCs assembled by TNT/FTO films is strongly related to the tube length of titania and the surface treatment. For the photoanodes without any surface modification, the highest overall photovoltaic conversion efficiency (PCE) that can be achieved is 4.12% in the DSSC assembled with 33-mu m-thick TNT arrays, while the overall PCE of DSSC based on the 33-mu m-thick TNT arrays increases to 9.02% in response to the treatment with TiCl4. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.