Study of the Morphological, Structural and Photoelectrochemical Properties of TiO2 Nanorods grown by Hydrothermal Method

We investigated the effects of growth duration on the morphological, structural, and photoelectrochemical properties of TiO2 nanorods grown on a TiO2-buffered fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) substrate using the hydrothermal method. From the study, we found that the photoelectrochemical properties were mainly dependent on the nanorod length and (002) XRD peak intensity, which indicates vertical growth of the TiO2. The morphological and structural properties of the TiO2 nanorods largely affect their photoelectrochemical properties. The photocurrent density was increased when the growth duration was increased from 1 hour to 4 hours, and then changed little above 4 hours. Consequently, the highest photocurrent density, 0.897 mA/cm(2) (at 1.0 V vs. SCE), was obtained from the 8 hour-sample which had good morphological and structural properties. We used field emission scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM) for analysis of the morphological properties, x-ray diffraction (XRD) for structural properties and three-electrode potentiostat for photoelectrochemical properties.