Self-assembled growth of tandem nanostructures based on TiO2 mesoporous/ZnO nanowire arrays and their optoelectronic and photoluminescence properties

Abstract

Growth of ZnO nanowires within TiO2 mesoporous structures is carried out by hydrothermal method. Structural, optical and thermal characterizations have been carried out by SEM, XRD, EDAX, DTG, TG, PL and UV–Vis spectroscopy. XRD characterization shows that the all diffraction peaks of the tandem nanostructures films can be well indexed to a mixture of hexagonal wurtzite ZnO and anatase TiO2 structures. The UV–Visible absorbance spectrum indicates that the tandem nanostructures based on TiO2 mesoporous/ZnO nanowire arrays have 3.13 eV band gap energy while pure ZnO nanowire and bare TiO2 mesoporous show 3.37 and 3.22 eV band gap energy, respectively. The PL spectra of tandem nanostructures show that the UV, violet and yellow emission peaks appeared at 3.1, 2.6 and 2.3 eV, respectively. It has been shown that from the PL spectra, the enhanced ultraviolet emission of TiO2/ZnO tandem structures is related to the fluorescence resonance energy transfer between TiO2 mesoporous and ZnO nanowires. Thermogravimetric analysis from room temperature to 800 °C has been performed to identify the thermal stability and the amount of tandem TiO2/ZnO structures.