Zinc Oxide–Titania Heterojunction‐based Solid Nanospheres as Photoanodes for Electron‐Trapping in Dye‐Sensitized Solar Cells

Abstract Agile nanostructure architectures and smart combinations of semiconducting metal oxide materials are key features of high‐performing dye‐sensitized solar cells (DSSCs). Herein, we synthesize mesoporous solid nanospheres of ZnO–TiO 2 with type‐II heterojunction and use these as an efficient photoanode material for excellent photoconversion. These polydisperse aggregates doped with 1 %, 5 %, and 10 % of ZnO exhibit improved solar cell performance with respect to pristine TiO 2 under AM 1.5 G. The 1 % ZnO doped TiO 2 nanosphere possess high specific surface area (84.23 m 2 g −1 ) as a photoanode and shows high photoconversion efficiency of about 8.07 % with ca. 18 % improvement in the photocurrent density ( J sc ) compare to TiO 2 nanosphere. The improved solar cell performance (Δ η =40 %) of ZnO decorated TiO 2 nanospheres is ascribed to type‐II heterojunction of ZnO–TiO 2 , that reduces the electron recombination and synergistically enhances the electron mobility and charge collection capability.