Influence of growth time and annealing on rutile TiO2 single-crystal nanorod arrays synthesized by hydrothermal method in dye-sensitized solar cells

► Dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC) assembled using TiO2 nanorod arrays as photoanodes. ► Influence of growth time and annealing on TiO2 nanorod (NR) electrode is examined. ► Increasing growth time lead to both the increase of NR length and DSSC performance. ► Annealing enhances the electric contact and DSSC performance. ► High efficiency of 4.87% achieved in the DSSCs through optimizing TiO2 NR electrodes.