The porous nanotubes were successfully fabricated by coating a porous layer on the walls of the TiO2 nanotubes. This method was proved available for effectively increasing the specific surface area of the nanotubes. The DSSCs based on such porous nanotubes has a higher conversion efficiency than that of the DSSCs using common TiO2 nanotubes. This could be explained by the enhanced loading of dye molecules on porous TiO2 nanotubes, which resulted in the improvement of short-circuit current. The light to electric energy conversion efficiency of the DSSCs applying porous TiO2 nanotubes is about 1.79% nearly two times higher than that of the DSSCs based on normal TiO2 nanotubes. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.