Abstract
In this study, a porous TiO 2 thin film was modified with a robust sol-gel process to form interconnected nanoparticle networks for facilitating charge transfer in a dye-sensitized solar cell. Compared to the conventionally prepared photoanode using only P25 TiO 2 nanoparticles, such a unique processing method could reduce the interfacial impedance by ∼ 18% (from 27.6 to 22.5) by forming interparticle-bindings between the P25 TiO 2 nanoparticles with the sol-gel TiO 2 . Such a processing method could improve the photocurrent density by ∼ 30% (from 10.07 mA/cm 2 to 13.07 mA/cm 2 ) and consequently it results in a ∼ 20% photovoltaic efficiency improvement of dye-sensitized solar cell (from 4.83% to 5.81%). In addition to the photovoltaic performance enhancement, such a facile method with reduced processing time and energy consumption provides the possibility of developing high performance and cost-effective dye-sensitized solar cells.