Fabrication of Highly-Ordered TiO<sub>2</sub> Nanotube Arrays and Their Use in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Kang, Taewon; Smith, Adam P.; Taylor, Barney E.; Durstock, Michael F.

doi:10.1021/nl802818d

Cited by 299 publications

(204 citation statements)

References 31 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

204

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…242 It is believed that TiO 2 nanotubes could be superior to nanorods or nanowires because of the availability of inner as well as outer walls of tubes for dye adsorption. [225][226][227][228][229][230][231][232][233][234][235][236][237][238][239][240][241][242][243][244] In 2007, Zhu et al reported the dynamics of electron transport and recombination in DSSCs incorporating oriented TiO 2 nanotube (NT) arrays. 229 The NT arrays consisted of closely packed NTs, several microns in length, with typical wall thickness and inter-tube spacing of 8-10 nm and pore diameters of about 30 nm, as shown in Fig.…”

Section: Selected Recent Progressmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nanomaterials for renewable energy production and storage

et al. 2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Over the past decades, there have been many projections on the future depletion of the fossil fuel reserves on earth as well as the rapid increase in green-house gas emissions. There is clearly an urgent need for the development of renewable energy technologies. On a different frontier, growth and manipulation of materials on the nanometer scale have progressed at a fast pace. Selected recent and significant advances in the development of nanomaterials for renewable energy applications are reviewed here, and special emphases are given to the studies of solar-driven photocatalytic hydrogen production, electricity generation with dye-sensitized solar cells, solidstate hydrogen storage, and electric energy storage with lithium ion rechargeable batteries.

show abstract

Section: Selected Recent Progressmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nanomaterials for renewable energy production and storage

et al. 2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In principle, any of these materials can be subjected to a variety of chemical reactions under a suitable atmosphere to fabricate nanostructures from a virtually inexhaustible list of material compositions. The fabricated nanostructures can find applications in plasmonics 21 , plasmonic nanolithography 22 , photon detection 23 , nanophotonics 24 , memristors 25 and metallic nanostructures 26 for nanoelectronics, control of cell behaviour through patterned surfaces 27 and in low-cost fabrication of highly ordered TiO 2 structures, which have been shown to significantly increase the efficiency of dye-sensitized solar cells 28 .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Nonlinear laser lithography for indefinitely large-area nanostructuring with femtosecond pulses

Öktem¹,

Pavlov²,

İlday³

et al. 2013

Nature Photon

316

211

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Dynamical systems based on the interplay of nonlinear feedback mechanisms are ubiquitous in nature [1][2][3][4][5] . Well-understood examples from photonics include mode locking 6 and a broad class of fractal optics 7 , including self-similarity 8 . In addition to the fundamental interest in such systems, fascinating technical functionalities that are difficult or even impossible to achieve with linear systems can emerge naturally from them 7 if the right control tools can be applied. Here, we demonstrate a method that exploits positive nonlocal feedback to initiate, and negative local feedback to regulate, the growth of ultrafast laser-induced metal-oxide nanostructures with unprecedented uniformity, at high speed, low cost and on non-planar or flexible surfaces. The nonlocal nature of the feedback allows us to stitch the nanostructures seamlessly, enabling coverage of indefinitely large areas with subnanometre uniformity in periodicity. We demonstrate our approach through the fabrication of titanium dioxide and tungsten oxide nanostructures, but it can also be extended to a large variety of other materials.The fabrication of nanostructures on surfaces is of paramount importance in nanotechnology and materials science 9 . There are several established techniques, including photolithography, electron-beam lithography, imprint lithography 10 and laser interference lithography 11 , as well as non-conventional approaches such as selfassembly 12 and direct laser writing 13 . These techniques require either high-cost, complex systems or offer limited flexibility. An alternative flexible and potentially very low-cost method is laserinduced periodic surface structuring (LIPSS). The first observation of LIPSS dates back to 1965 14 . However, after almost 50 years and a large body of published work that has demonstrated LIPSS on various metals, semiconductors and glasses [15][16][17][18][19] , the method has not found widespread use due to the stubborn problem of quality control 18,19 .Despite the evident role of self-assembly in the LIPSS process, uniformity and long-range order remain poor, a problem we identified as originating from the fact that the structures are initiated from multiple seed locations concurrently and independently, thereby producing an irregular pattern. Because the process is irreversible, without self-correction, these irregularities become frozen. Our solution to this relies on carefully exploiting feedback mechanisms to tightly regulate the formation of nanostructures induced by ultrashort pulses. This process can be summarized in three steps.(1) The laser beam, with a peak intensity close to the ablation threshold for titanium, is focused on a titanium surface, where it is scattered by existing nanostructures or any surface defects 15 . The interference of the scattered and incident fields leads to intensity variations in the immediate neighbourhood of the scattering point. (2) At points where the threshold intensity for ablation is exceeded, titanium reacts rapidly with O 2 from the air, form...

show abstract

“…The alumina template is then removed by immersing the samples in 6 M NaOH solution. Kang (Kang et al, 2009) fabricated highly ordered TiO 2 nanotubes using such nanoporous alumina template method. Such nanotubes with 15 μm lengths were heat treated at 500 °C for 30 min and soaked in N3 dye for 24 h. DSC based on the nanotubes showed a conversion efficiency of as high as 3.5% and a maximum IPCE of 20% at 520 nm.…”

Section: Tio 2 Nanotubesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Application of Inorganic Nanomaterials in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Chen¹,

Tian²,

Tang³

et al. 2011

Solar Cells - Dye-Sensitized Devices

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Fabrication of Highly-Ordered TiO₂ Nanotube Arrays and Their Use in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Cited by 299 publications

References 31 publications

Nanomaterials for renewable energy production and storage

Nanomaterials for renewable energy production and storage

Nonlinear laser lithography for indefinitely large-area nanostructuring with femtosecond pulses

The Application of Inorganic Nanomaterials in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Fabrication of Highly-Ordered TiO2 Nanotube Arrays and Their Use in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Cited by 299 publications

References 31 publications

Nanomaterials for renewable energy production and storage

Nanomaterials for renewable energy production and storage

Nonlinear laser lithography for indefinitely large-area nanostructuring with femtosecond pulses

The Application of Inorganic Nanomaterials in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

Fabrication of Highly-Ordered TiO₂ Nanotube Arrays and Their Use in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells