| Titanium dioxide (titania) nanotubular structure discovered in 2001 have been attracting extensive interest due to their widely applications in photocatalysis, catalysis and solar cells. The final products of titania nanotube (TiNT) arrays can be synthesized in three forms. One is in form of ordered arrays attached to original Ti substrate, another one is in form of free-standing arrays and the last form is white powders. In this dissertation, we review the development history of these three types of TiNT arrays and introduce the fabrication process of TiNTs products in detail including morphology characterization, fabrication parameter study and optimization of synthesis condition.;Since titania is a semiconductor with large band gap (3.2 eV), the large bandgap leads to only UV light absorption, which constitutes less than 5% of the whole solar spectrum. In order to efficiently harvest solar energy for the solar cells made of titania, several methods depositing TiNT arrays with metal oxides to improve the light harvesting are presented in this dissertation. A comprehensive study of forced hydrolysis method is carried out and investigated.;Preliminary devices are built up in DSSCs concept based on the hybrid structure of TiO2/Fe2O3. Some important parameters, such as open circuit voltage (VOC), short circuit current (ISC), and fill factor (FF) are evaluated. Optical properties of the samples with the hybrid architecture are studied to achieve an optimal performance in DSSCs-type solar cells. |
