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Saeid Vafaei [1] and Kazuhiro Manseki [2] and Soki Horita [2] and Masaki Matsui [3] and Takashi Sugiura [2]

Academic Editor: Ting Xia

1, Mechanical Engineering Department, Bradley University, 1501 West Bradley Avenue, Peoria, IL 61625, USA, bradley.edu

2, Graduate School of Natural Science and Technology, Gifu University, Yanagido, Gifu 501-1193, Japan, gifu-u.ac.jp

3, Faculty of Engineering, Gifu University, Yanagido, Gifu 501-1193, Japan, gifu-u.ac.jp

Received May 15, 2017; Accepted Jul 5, 2017

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

1. Introduction

Organic molecular-based optoelectronic devices have been extensively studied over the last decade, such as in electroluminescent (EL) displays and photovoltaics [1]. In particular, low-cost fabrication is one of the fundamental issues in order to realize a large-scale commercial production. In this regard, a solution processibility of these devices has significant advantages over inorganic ones that require a high-cost vacuum process. Among many emerging technologies, dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) represent opportunities for the creation of many advanced materials and device structures both for indoor and outdoor applications. Grätzel’s group for the first time demonstrated the use of highly dispersed TiO2 nanoparticles as anode materials for high-efficiency DSSCs [2]. The synthesis of highly crystallized TiO2 nanoparticles is generally required in order to develop high-performance photoelectrode materials in DSSCs [3]. Besides, it is necessary to engineer the porous layer of deposited TiO2 nanoparticles to (a) enhance the monolayer dye adsorption to the surface of TiO2 nanoparticles, (b) efficiently collect the generated electrons and conduct them out, and (c) suppress the recombination phenomenon to enable efficient electron transport inside TiO2 films which plays a crucial role in the solar cell’s performance. A number of investigations have demonstrated how DSSCs’ performance will be affected by characteristics of TiO2 nanoparticles; many groups have shown the better electron transport of 1D morphologies of TiO2 particles over nanoparticulate materials [4].

So far, most of the 1D TiO2 particles including nanowires, nanotubes, and nanorods have been synthesized by a bottom-up method via wet-chemical approach such as hydrothermal reactions and anodic electrodeposition of suitable Ti(IV) precursors [5, 6]. We present for the...

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