A novel tio₂ tape for fabricating dye-sensitized solar cells on universal conductive substrates

The present paper describes a new method for manufacturing large scale, stable, transportable, and designable nanostructured porous TiO₂ tapes on various substrates for use in photoelectrochemical cells. The method involves predeposition of TiO₂ strips on the fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) glass by screen-printing method, peeling off TiO₂ strips from the substrate by a novel laser-assisted lift-off technique, sintering the formed TiO₂ tapes at 500 C for 15 min, and compressing the sintered TiO₂ tapes on different conductive substrates with a low pressure rolling press to form mechanically stable, electrically conducting, porous nanostructured TiO₂ electrodes at room temperature. Photoelectrochemical characteristics of the resulted electrodes are presented. Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) with the as-fabricated TiO₂ photoanodes on PET-ITO and FTO glass achieved a conversion efficiency of 4.2% and 6.2%, respectively. The potential use of this new manufacturing method in future DSSC applications is discussed.