Synthesis and characteristics study of TiO₂ nanowires and nanoflowers on FTO/glass and glass substrates via hydrothermal technique

Abstract

In this work, a typical hydrothermal synthesis to grow long, high density, vertically aligned, well oriented and homogenous TiO₂ nanowires arrays and flower-like film on conductive and nonconductive (glass) sides of fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO-glass) substrate are presented. Under the same conditions, the TiO₂ nanowires arrays were directly grown on the FTO coated side. While the flower-like nanostructures were grown on the glass side. Two cleaned FTO-glass samples were placed inside the autoclave cylinder. The samples were placed at horizontal and inclined at 45° respectively. The average diameter and length of nanowires are 150 nm and 7.0 μm respectively. Also the average diameter of the prepared flower-like nanostructure of TiO₂ is ≈5–10 µm. The flower-like nanostructure growth was confirmed in the absence of FTO by scratched line made on conductive side. The optical propertied of the TiO₂ flower-like nanostructures was also investigated. The synthesized products were characterized by SEM equipped with EDS, XRD and UV–VIS NIR spectrophotometer.