Transferable and flexible nanorod-assembled TiO₂ cloths for dye-sensitized solar cells, photodetectors, and photocatalysts

Flexible and transferable TiO₂ nanorods cloths (TNRCs) were synthesized from a fast and catalyst-free microwave heating route by using carbon cloth as an efficiently sacrificial template. The as-synthesized TNRCs were assembled by numerous aligned TiO₂ nanorods with diameters of about 100 nm. The good transferability and flexibility make it possible to be transferred to any substrate for further device applications. As an example, we transferred the TNRCs to a FTO substrate to make dye-sensitized solar cells, which exhibited an improved efficiency of around 2.21% assisted by TiCl ₄ treatment. The transferable TNRCs were also configured as high-performance photodetectors. Illuminated by UV light with a wavelength of 365 nm, the current was found significantly enhanced, and an I _UV/I_dark of about 60, a rise time of nearly 1.4 s, and a decay time of 6.1 s were obtained. Moreover, they were also configured as flexible and recyclable photocatalysts with good photocatalytic performance for the degradation of methylene blue solution under UV light irradiation.