Photovoltaic characteristics of dye-sensitized solar cells fabricated from branched titania nanotube arrays are compared with those obtained from unbranched ones. Branched titania nanotubes result in increased efficiency and short circuit current density without any discernible increases in dark current, than in devices with purely unbranched tubes. Adsorption isotherms show that increased inter-tube porosity exposes the outer surfaces of the branched tubes, providing increased access and area for dye adsorption. Our findings indicate that branched titania nanotubes could be attractive for use in many applications.

Titania nanotubes are attractive for many applications such as energy generation, storage and delivery, gas sensing, and water purification. Here, we demonstrate branched titania nanotube formation during potentiostatic anodization of titanium films or foils in a single electrochemical bath by stepping down the anodization voltage V-onod below a threshold value. The linear dependence on the titanium nanotube diameter with V-onod and the lack of nanotube formation for V-anod<20 V constrains homogeneous branching to occur only V-2 <= V-1/root 2-V0, where V-1 and V-2 are the initial and final anodization voltages and V-0 is a voltage offset dependent on the anodization bath chemistry. Our technique circumvents the constraints of multi-bath and multi-temperature methods for branching, and provides a versatile means for creating hierarchically sized and/or interconnected titania nanotubes for applications. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

We report the kinetics of titania nanotube length evolution during anodization of titanium films. Our results show that the nanotube length increase is thermally activated, and governed by voltage-dependent activation energy 0.6 eV ≤ Eeff ≤ 1.1 eV expressed by Eeff = E0-αVanod where α is a constant and E0 = 1.6 eV is a voltage-independent term. The proximity of E0 to that of oxygen diffusion in titania suggests that oxygen transport across the titania walls at the pore bottoms is the rate-limiting step. These results provide insights into the mechanism of titania nanotube formation and a framework for their rational synthesis for applications.