Vertically oriented, highly ordered TiO₂ nanotube arrays have attracted considerable attention because of their impressive competence in a variety of applications including solar cells, chemical sensing, photocatalysis and biomedical industry. However, only a few papers reported on the solar cells prepared by combining TiO₂ nanotubes and semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) based on composite structures. This paper presents the preparation of TiO₂ nanotube arrays for the solar cells based on TiO₂ nanotubes and CdSe QDs. The fabrication routes of highly organized TiO₂ nanotube arrays synthesized by anodization of Ti foil in electrolyte were described, the performance of TiO₂ nanotube arrays on the CdSe QDs sensitized TiO₂ nanotube arrays photoelectrodes was investigated, too. The work herein details the effect of fabrication variables anodization time and examines the crystalline nature of the annealed (initially amorphous) samples. The nanotubes have an average inner diameter of 50 nm and a tube thickness of 12 nm. The maximum length of the TiO₂ Nanotube we achieved is 9.75 μm. In QDs-sensitized TiO₂ nanotube solar cells, CdSe QDs were used as the antenna layer (an absorber material) coating on the surface of titanium foil. Application of nanotube arrays to quantum dot solar cells under sunlight is discussed and compare to the dye sensitized solar cell. The quantum dots (QDs) sensitized solar cell's efficiencies can not match dye sensitized solar cell, but it will be a novel way to utilize solar energy in the future.

Date Published: 24 August 2009
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 7381, International Symposium on Photoelectronic Detection and Imaging 2009: Material and Device Technology for Sensors, 73810Z (24 August 2009); doi: 10.1117/12.835682

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7381:
International Symposium on Photoelectronic Detection and Imaging 2009: Material and Device Technology for Sensors
Xu-yuan Chen; Yue-lin Wang; Zhi-ping Zhou; Qing-kang Wang, Editor(s)