Study of the Morphological, Optical, Structural and Photoelectrochemical Properties of TiO2 Nanorods Grown with Various Precursor Concentrations

Study of the Morphological, Optical, Structural and Photoelectrochemical Properties of TiO2 Nanorods Grown with Various Precursor Concentrations

Vertically aligned TiO2 nanorods were grown on a fluorine-doped tin oxide(FTO) substrate covered with a TiO2 buffer layer by using the hydrothermalmethod with various titanium precursor concentrations. In this study, theeffects of the precursor concentration on the morphological, structural,optical and photoelectrochemical properties of TiO2 nanorods wereinvestigated. We observed that photoelectrochemical properties weremainly dependent on the nanorod length, surface area, transmittance and(002) XRD peak intensity, which indicates the oriented growth of the TiO2nanorods perpendicular to the substrate. As a result, the sample grown froma 0.09 M precursor solution, which grew vertically and had the highestsurface area, showed the highest photocurrent density, 0.733 mA/cm2 (at1.0 V vs. SCE). Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM)and atomic force microscopy (AFM) were used to characterize themorphology of the nanorods, X-ray diffraction (XRD) was used to detectthe structural properties of the nanorods, UV-visual spectroscopy was usedto measure the optical properties, and analysis with a three-electrodepotentiostat was used to measure the photoelectrochemical properties.

Vertically aligned TiO2 nanorods were grown on a fluorine-doped tin oxide(FTO) substrate covered with a TiO2 buffer layer by using the hydrothermalmethod with various titanium precursor concentrations. In this study, theeffects of the precursor concentration on the morphological, structural,optical and photoelectrochemical properties of TiO2 nanorods wereinvestigated. We observed that photoelectrochemical properties weremainly dependent on the nanorod length, surface area, transmittance and(002) XRD peak intensity, which indicates the oriented growth of the TiO2nanorods perpendicular to the substrate. As a result, the sample grown froma 0.09 M precursor solution, which grew vertically and had the highestsurface area, showed the highest photocurrent density, 0.733 mA/cm2 (at1.0 V vs. SCE). Field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM)and atomic force microscopy (AFM) were used to characterize themorphology of the nanorods, X-ray diffraction (XRD) was used to detectthe structural properties of the nanorods, UV-visual spectroscopy was usedto measure the optical properties, and analysis with a three-electrodepotentiostat was used to measure the photoelectrochemical properties.