A facile method to fabricate transparent TiO2 photoanodes for quantum dot–sensitized solar cells

While transparent photoanode is highly desired for energy devices, its performance is still far from expectation. In the present work, a facile strategy was developed to prepare transparent TiO 2 films as photoanodes of quantum dot–sensitized solar cells (QDSSCs). Different TiO 2 nanoparticles (P25, rutile, anatase) were dispersed in C 16 H 36 O 4 Ti included solution and spin-coated on FTO glass, which is followed by sintering. The as-prepared TiO 2 films were used as photoanodes of QDSSCs. It has been shown that QDSSCs assembled by TiO 2 film prepared by P25 and N-butyl titanate slurry achieved the best performance. The transparency could be controlled by coating times, and the three-layer TiO 2 film showed the best performance with 2.70% of power conversion efficiency. Our work simplified the preparation process of TiO 2 slurry, shortened the preparation time, and realized the control of the crystal type proportion ofTiO 2 . It provides a new method for preparing transparent TiO 2 thin film for QDSSCs.