LAUSR

TiO2 nanorods have been prepared by hydrothermal method at 170 °C for 24 h and successfully implemented in a stable solar cell as a photoanode material to replace the conventional nanoparticles which cause the recombination reactions at the interfaces due to a large number of grain boundaries. The synthesized products are characterized by powder X-ray diffraction, Raman and transmission electron microscopy analysis. The performance of the nanorods employed solar cell has been studied under the irradiance of 100 mW/cm2. The fabricated device showed a power conversion efficiency of 5.42%. The open-circuit voltage, short-circuit current density and fill factor of the device are 0.647 V, 13.64 mA/cm2, and 61.5%, respectively. The electrochemical behavior of the fabricated device has been analyzed with electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The lifetime of the injected electrons in the photoanode network has been found to be 10 ms, which was evaluated from Bode phase plot. From the Nyquist plot of the impedance spectrum, lower charge transfer resistance (Rct) has been observed at the TiO2/dye/electrolyte interface. The sealed device was monitored frequently with 500 h of the interval. Up to 2500 h, no significant drop has been observed in the J–V characteristics.