Titania Nanotubes Prepared by Synthesis Method for Dye Sensitized Electrochemical Solar Cells

Abstract

The area of nanostructured materials for dye sensitized solar cells has gained great interest especially after a breakthrough by Gratzel and coworkers in developing a solar cell from nanostructured oxide of titania gaining an overall efficiency of about 11% [1–5]. Since then the research has been going on with an emphasis on further improvement on this achievement [6–8]. One area that is having a lot of interest is improvement on the charge transfer characteristics from the dye to semiconductor and hence in the whole system. The approach in our research group has been on synthesis of nanofibers of titania oxide that can provide a directed transport of electrons to the conducting back contact and hence giving optimal electronic charge transport through the cell. Titania nanofibers have been synthesised before [9–11], but the reports have been inconclusive as to what stage of synthesis the nanofibers form