The efforts to improve the efficiency of dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) have been made over a couple of decades. One of the essential components in DSSCs is underlayer formation. There have been a few well known studies for the underlayer formation and interconnection of TiO₂ nano-particles. The best known method is ₄ treatment, which is an acidic condition. Due to the acidity of the solution, this method is not appropriate for treating metal substrates. Since metals can be etched by acidic solution, other methods must be considered.

We have applied a few different methods to have the same effect as TiCl₄ treatment, and have optimized to obtain maximum efficiency for metal substrates. For the optimum condition and feasibility, FTO coated glass substrates are used and analysed. The methods include treatment of titanium isopropoxide solution in isopropanol, neutralized TiCl₄ treatment, and other metal oxide formation such as Nb₂O₅.

For the analysis, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, transient electron spectroscopy, and incident photon-to-current efficiency have been employed in addition to the common analysis methods.