National Natural Science Foundation of China [51072170, 21021002]; National Basic Research Program of China [2012CB932900]; Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province of China [2011J01057]; Natural Science Foundation of Fujian [2011J05143]; Education Department of Fujian Province [JK2010053] ; Highly ordered rutile TiO2 nanorod arrays (NRAs) are promising architectures in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSCs). However, the efficiency of DSCs based on such photoanodes is still relatively low, largely due to the limited internal surface area. Herein, we report that highly oriented rutile TiO2 NRAs with film thickness up to similar to 30 mu m was developed by a facile hydrothermal method. More importantly, an optimized porous rutile TiO2 NRAs with a large internal surface area was fabricated on the FTO (fluorine-doped tin oxide) substrate via a secondary hydrothermal treatment and when applied as the photoanodes in DSCs, a record efficiency of 7.91% was achieved.