Jpn. J. Appl. Phys. 51 (2012) 044106 (6 pages)  |Previous Article| |Next Article|  |Table of Contents|
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Effects of Electrospun TiO₂ Nanowires Mixed in Nanoparticle-Based Electrode for Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Chieko Shimada, Koji Kitamura, and Seimei Shiratori

(Received July 27, 2011; accepted November 17, 2011; published online April 4, 2012)

In this article, we report the improvement of energy conversion efficiency by a simple process for dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Some previous studies were reported in which TiO₂ nanowires were used in the place of TiO₂ nanoparticles as a TiO₂ electrode because nanowires possess a good electron transport property. However, if larger sizes of nanowires are used for the TiO₂ electrode, a large void between nanowires and a decrease in surface area are observed. To solve this problem, we report a TiO₂ nanoparticle/nanowire hybrid electrode for DSSCs, which showed both a good electron transport property and dye adsorption. TiO₂ nanofibers were fabricated by an electrospinning method and sol–gel techniques. TiO₂ nanowires, whose diameters were controlled by varying the polymer concentration in the electrospinning solution, were successfully applied to DSSCs. We examine how TiO₂ nanowires can work in the TiO₂ electrode. In this study, we demonstrated that this hybrid electrode has an advantage in the efficiency of DSSCs.

URL: http://jjap.jsap.jp/link?JJAP/51/044106/
DOI: 10.1143/JJAP.51.044106

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