TECHNOLOGY FOCUS - INORGANIC CHEMISTRY - Preferred Components: The conductive layer is made of indium tin oxide glass, graphite or metal. The metal of the conductive layer is nickel or stainless steel. The noble metal is palladium, platinum, ruthenium, silver or gold. The size of the noble metal nano-clusters in the electrochemical catalyst layer is 10-50 nm. The second electrode includes a transparent conductive glass and a dye-impregnated titanium oxide layer formed on the surface of the transparent conductive glass when the first electrode is a cathode having an electrochemical catalyst layer.    TECHNOLOGY FOCUS - ORGANIC CHEMISTRY - Preferred Components: The conditioner is a cationic surfactant. The dye is ruthenium complex of formulae (I)-(IV) (where TBA is tert.butyl acrylate).    TECHNOLOGY FOCUS - POLYMERS - Preferred Process: The second solution is prepared by providing a polymer solution capable of capping the noble metal, adding a precursor of a noble metal salt into the polymer solution and adding a reductant into the polymer solution having the noble metal salt to make the precursors reduced to the noble metal particles. The immersing of the substrate in the second solution is at lower than 50 degrees C. Preferred Components: The polymer is poly(N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone) (PVP), poly(acrylamide), poly(vinyl alcohol), poly(acrylic acid) or poly(ethyleneimine). The weight of the polymer to the weight of the noble metal in the second solution is 0.5-6. EXAMPLE - Poly(N-vinyl-2-pyrrolidone) (PVP) (0.1 g) was dissolved in de-ionized water (44 ml). Chloroplatinic acid as precursor (0.2 g) was added in the prepared PVP solution. Then, sodium tetrahydridoborate as reductant (5 ml) was added slowly to the beaker to give platinum nano-clusters. A clean indiumtin oxide (ITO) glass plate was immersed in a tank containing conditioner ML-371 (available from Rockwood Electrochemicals Asia Ltd.) (1%) at 60 degrees C for 5 minutes. After rinsing with de-ionized water, the conditioned ITO glass was then immersed in the PVP-capped platinum suspension for 5 minutes. The negative charged PVP-capped platinum nano-clusters were adsorbed on the ITO glass and then an electrochemical catalyst layer was formed on the conditioned ITO glass. Then TiO2 (titanium oxide)/ITO glass plate was immersed in a dye solution prepared by dissolving dye N-719 (available from Solaronix) (II) in a solution containing acetonitrile, t-butanol and ethanol in the ratio of 2:1:1.