Effect of incorporation of TiO ₂ nanoparticles into oriented TiO ₂ nanotube based dye-sensitized solar cells

The authors present the first reported use of vertically oriented titanium oxide nanotube/titanium oxide nanoparticle nanocomposites to improve the efficiency of T102 based dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Titanium oxide nanotubes incorporating titanium oxide nanoparticles were prepared to harvest more solar light, and their solar-to-electric conversion efficiency was characterized. The incorporation of the titanium oxide nanoparticles increased the visible light absorption of the titanium oxide nanotube based DSSC system because of the increased light absorption resulting from the increased surface area. However, the photocurrent enhancement was more obvious under the illumination of visible light with a wavelength longer than 550 nm owing to the light scattering effect of the titanium oxide nanoparticles.