title: TiO(2) nanospheres: a facile size-tunable synthesis and effective light-harvesting layer for dye-sensitized solar cells.
abstract: A facile route to synthesize amorphous TiO2 nanospheres by a controlled oxidation and hydrolysis process without any structure-directing agents or templates is presented. The size of the amorphous TiO2 nanospheres can be easily turned from 20 to 1500 nm by adjusting either the Ti species or ethanol content in the reaction solution. The phase structure of nanospheres can be controlled by hydrothermal treatment. The TiO2 nanospheres show excellent size-dependent light-scattering effects and can be structured into a light-harvesting layer for dye-sensitized solar cells with a quite high power conversion efficiency of 9.25 %.
authors.affiliation: Key Laboratory of Materials Physics, Anhui Key Lab of Nanomaterials and Nanostructure, Institute of Solid State Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei (P.R. China); University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026 (P.R. China).
authors.forename: Shuan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Yong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.forename: Sichao
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Yunxia
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Guanghai
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Linhua
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.forename: Songyuan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Dai
keywords: energy conversion; light-harvesting layer; nanostructures; phase control; titanium dioxide