A novel composite photoanode with ZnO nanowire arrays coating on the top of TiO(2) nanoparticles is fabricated, and an efficiency of 4.52% is achieved for the composite cell, far higher than both 0.90% of the ZnO nanowire cell and 3.56% of the TiO(2) nanoparticle cell. The improved efficiency is resulted from the high surface area of nanoparticles, as well as fast electron transport and light scattering effect of nanowires.
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