Growth of Aligned Single-Crystalline TiO2 Nanorod Arrays on Transparent Conducting Oxide Coated Glass

Abstract

In this work, we report a simple hydrothermal method for growth of aligned TiO2 nanorod arrays directly on SnO2:F (FTO) coated glass substrates without any seed layer. The rectangular nanorod is single crystalline with a tetragonal rutile structure. The diameter, length and density of the nanorods are determined by the synthesis temperature. When synthesis temperature increases from 110 to 190 °C, the diameter increases from 53 to 249 nm, and the length increases from to 324 to 1904 nm. However, the highest density is obtained at 150 °C due to nuclei coalescence at the high synthesis temperature. The activation energy for formation of TiO2 nanorod arrays is 102 kJ/mol obtained by using an Arrhenius equation.