A first report on the fabrication of vertically aligned anatase TiO2 nanowires by electrospinning: Preferred architecture for nanostructured solar cells

Thirumal Krishnamoorthy; Velmurugan Thavasi; Mhaisalkar Subodh G; Seeram Ramakrishna

doi:10.1039/C1EE01315G

A first report on the fabrication of vertically aligned anatase TiO₂nanowires by electrospinning: Preferred architecture for nanostructured solar cells

Thirumal Krishnamoorthy,^ab Velmurugan Thavasi,*^c Mhaisalkar Subodh G^d and Seeram Ramakrishna*^ef

Author affiliations

* Corresponding authors

^a NUS Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Initiative (NUSNNI)-NanoCore, National University of Singapore, Singapore

^b School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore

^c NUS Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Initiative (NUSNNI)-NanoCore, National University of Singapore, Singapore
E-mail: velnanotech@gmail.com

^d School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore

^e National University of Singapore, Singapore
E-mail: seeram@nus.edu.sg

^f King Suad University, King Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Higher performance is expected in electronic devices that utilize metal oxide semiconductors in vertical architecture owing to the direct and effective electron transport. Producing anatase phase vertical TiO₂ nanowires on conductive substrate has been challenging. Herein we demonstrate for the first time not only the facile fabrication of vertical arrays of anatase TiO₂ nanowires, but also fabricating the wires by using electrospinning method. Firstly aligned nanofiberous TiO₂ ribbons were produced by electrospinning and then erected to vertical nanowires after the post-treatment. As-produced vertical ceramic TiO₂ nanowires possessed the area of 0.2 cm² with wire diameter of 90 ± 30 nm, and height up to 27 μm. This approach can be a better alternative to the currently available methods like hydrothermal synthesis and template assisted fabrication as the diameter, height of the wires, and spacing between the wires can be effectively controlled by this method. With vertical nanowires of anatase phase TiO₂ as photoelectrode in dye sensitized solar cells (DSSC), the solar-to-current conversion efficiency (η), short circuit current (Jsc), open circuit voltage (Voc), and fill factor (FF) were measured as 2.87% and 5.71 mA cm⁻², 0.782 V, 64.2% respectively.

Article information

https://doi.org/10.1039/C1EE01315G

Article type

Communication

Submitted

18 Mar 2011

Accepted

09 May 2011

First published

15 Jun 2011

Download Citation

Energy Environ. Sci., 2011,4, 2807-2812

Permissions

Request permissions

A first report on the fabrication of vertically aligned anatase TiO₂ nanowires by electrospinning: Preferred architecture for nanostructured solar cells

T. Krishnamoorthy, V. Thavasi, M. Subodh G and S. Ramakrishna, Energy Environ. Sci., 2011, 4, 2807 DOI: 10.1039/C1EE01315G

To request permission to reproduce material from this article, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Energy & Environmental Science