Thorn-like morphology of TiO2 hierarchical structures for efficient dye-sensitized solar cell application

摘要

? 2023 Elsevier B.V.The efficiency of Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) can be improved through the employment of one-dimensional TiO2 nanostructured thin film photoanode materials. Herein, we have synthesized a 1D thorn-like nanostructure by the hydrothermal method as a photoanode in the DSSCs. The influence of the reaction time on the morphological, structural, and optical properties of the TiO2 nanostructures was studied. Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) showed the formation of nanothorn - like structures with an average length of 12 μm in 12 h reaction time, whereas a growth time of 18 h, micro flower-like structures were obtained. The dye-sensitized solar cell was fabricated with the two different prepared morphologies and the efficiency was found to be 0.51% and 1.2% for TiO2 samples prepared at 12 and 18 h.