AbstractFor conventional dye or quantum dot sensitized solar cells, which are fabricated using mesoporous films, the inefficient electron transport due to defects such as grain boundaries and surface traps is a major drawback. To simultaneously increase the carrier transport efficiency as well as the surface area, optimal-assembling of hierarchical nanostructures is an attractive approach. Here, a three dimensional (3D) hierarchical heterostructure, consisting of CdS sensitized one dimensional (1D) ZnO nanorods deposited on two dimensional (2D) TiO₂ (001) nanosheet, is prepared via a solution-process method. Such heterstructure exhibits significantly enhanced photoelectric and photocatalytic H₂ evolution performance compared with CdS sensitized 1D ZnO nanorods/1D TiO₂ nanorods photoanode, as a result of the more efficient light harvesting over the entire visible light spectrum and the effective electron transport through a highly connected 3D network.