The use of Ti meshes with self-organized TiO₂nanotubes as photoanodes of all-Ti dye-sensitized solar cells

This paper reports a simple and facile method for directly growing self-organized TiO2nanotubular arrays around the whole Ti mesh by electrochemical anodization in organic electrolytes and their application in all-Ti dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Compared with the traditional fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO)-based DSSC and the backside illuminated DSSC, this type of DSSC showed advantages such as low resistance, cheap fabrication cost and enhanced sunlight utilization. Different thicknesses of nanotubular array layers were investigated to find their influence on the photovoltaic parameters of the cell. We also considered three types of meshes as the substrates of anodes and found that the cell with 6 openings/mm2exhibited the highest conversion efficiency of 5.3%. The area of the cell had only a little impact on the photovoltaic performances.