Penetrated and aligned carbon nanotubes for counter electrodes of highly efficient dye-sensitized solar cells

Due to the unique structure and excellent properties, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have been widely proposed as electrode materials. However, the CNTs typically appear in a format of networks in which charges have to hop through a lot of boundaries with low efficiency. Here we have described a pressing method to produce penetrated and aligned CNT films in which the generated charges can be rapidly separated and transported during the application as electrodes. As a demonstration, they were used as counter electrodes to fabricate dye-sensitized solar cell with an efficiency of ∼8.46%, which was higher than the conventional platinum electrode.