No abstract

Nanotubular TiO2 photoanodes prepared by anodizing of technical grade Ti foils were sensitized with ruthenium (II) complexes and later chemically coated with dendrimers in order to improve the performance of solar cells containing ruthenium (II) complex-sensitized nanotubular TiO2 electrodes. The experimental results indicate that the presence of dendrimers in these semiconductor oxide films minimizes the loss of photoinjected electrons into the TiO2 nanotubes through the compact TiO2 layer, which partially tops the nanotubular structure at the beginning of the anodizing process. The presence of dendrimers in these photodevices produced a global photovoltaic conversion efficiency of 2.38% that it was significantly higher than that obtained for cells without dendrimers (0.71%).