Abstract
N-doped TiO2nanorod arrays (NRAs) were prepared by annealing the TiN nanorod arrays (NRAs) which were deposited by using oblique angle deposition (OAD) technique. The TiN NRAs were annealed at 330°C for different times (5, 15, 30, 60, and 120 min). The band gaps of annealed TiN NRAs (i.e., N-doped TiO2NRAs) show a significant variance with annealing time, and can be controlled readily by varying annealing time. All of the N-doped TiO2NRAs exhibit an enhancement in photocurrent intensity in visible light compared with that of pure TiO2and TiN, and the one annealed for 15 min shows the maximum photocurrent intensity owning to the optimal N dopant concentration. The results show that the N-doped TiO2NRAs, of which the band gap can be tuned easily, are a very promising material for application in photocatalysis.
Highlights
Since the first report of photocatalytic splitting of water using titanium dioxide (TiO2) photoanode by Fujishima and Honda in 1972 [1], TiO2 has been extensively studied and has been considered as one of the superior candidates for solving environmental concerns due to its cheapness, photostability, chemical inertness, nontoxicity, and strong photocatalytic activity [2]
The TiN nanorod arrays (NRAs) were deposited on quartz and F-doped SnO2 (FTO) substrates by using oblique angle deposition technique (OAD) described elsewhere [26], of which quartz substrates were used for UV-vis transmittance measurement
The band gap of the 120 N-TiO2 NRAs is 3.19 eV, which is very close to that of reported anatase TiO2 (3.2 eV), showing that the TiN is converted to TiO2 completely by annealing for 120 min [38]
Summary
Since the first report of photocatalytic splitting of water using titanium dioxide (TiO2) photoanode by Fujishima and Honda in 1972 [1], TiO2 has been extensively studied and has been considered as one of the superior candidates for solving environmental concerns due to its cheapness, photostability, chemical inertness, nontoxicity, and strong photocatalytic activity [2]. The other way to enhance the solar conversion efficiency is to obtain good electron-hole separation characteristics by reducing the recombination centers and increasing the charge transfer [18] Fabricating nanostructures such as nanoparticles, nanotubes, nanowires, nanobelts, and nanorods is Journal of Nanomaterials a promising way to enhance solar energy conversion efficiency of TiO2, since nanostructures exhibit many desirable characteristics for effective photocatalysis such as efficient and tunable optical absorption, large surface areas, short charge carrier diffusion lengths, and low reflectivity [19]. The film prepared by OAD technique presents a porous microstructure, where nanometer size columns with a high internal porosity are separated by wide pores which extend from the substrate to the film surface [25] This microstructure is of significant advantage in increasing the interface of nanorod and solution. The photoelectrochemical properties of the N-doped TiO2 NRAs in visible light are improved obviously compared with that of bare TiO2 NRAs and TiN NRAs
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