Growth of TiO2 nanosheet-array thin films by quick chemical bath deposition for dye-sensitized solar cells

Rutile TiO2 nanofilms, which were composed of many nanosheet-array domains with different orientations, were synthesized directly on fluorine-doped SnO2 conductive glass (FTO) substrates by a chemical deposition method in a short time in this paper. The average thickness of the nanosheets is about 10 nm; the nanosheets in each domain were parallel to each other and perpendicular to the substrate. The size and profile of the domains have a good correspondence to those of the FTO grains of the substrate, indicating a coherent nucleating and epitaxial growing nature of the films. The nanosheets split gradually and finally developed into nanofibers on prolonging the growing time to 20 h. Dye-sensitized solar cells, which were fabricated with the films, present an open-circuit voltage of 0.63 V and a short-circuit current of 7.02 mA/cm2, respectively.