Sunlight driven photocatalysis and non-enzymatic glucose sensing performance of cubic structured CuO thin films

Abstract

Cubic structured CuO thin films were fabricated through a combined effort of electrochemical and thermal annealing processes, and their solar light-induced photodegradation and non-enzymatic sensing behavior were well studied. Nanocubes like structures were achieved by varying the time during the electrochemical deposition. Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction studies reveal the monoclinic phase of CuO thin films while scanning electron microscopy highlights the modulation in the size and density of cube-like morphology of CuO thin films. Atomic force microscopy also assures the existence of cube-like nanostructures. Modulation in the optical behavior of CuO thin films was explored by the UV–visible spectroscopy, which indicates the bandgap narrowing in CuO thin films with the deposition time. Sunlight driven photodegradation performance of CuO thin films was explored by decomposition of Methylene Blue molecules. CuO thin films with different nanocubes density exhibit outstanding sunlight-induced photodegradation activity by degrading 5 µM MB dye solution in 90 min. Cubic nanostructured CuO thin film also reveals the outstanding non-enzymatic glucose sensing behavior with a high sensitivity of 1311.83 μA mM−1 cm−2, the wide linear range of 0.001–1.8 mM, fast response times (less than 5) and low detection limit (LOD) of 0.068 µM under a signal/noise ratio of 3.