Electrochemical fabrication of oriented ZnO nanorods on TiO 2 nanotubes

G. Jimenez Cadena (1) , Marielle Eyraud (2) , C. Chassigneux (3) , Florence Vacandio (2) , E. Comini (4) , G. Sberveglieri (5) , T. Djenizian (6)

1 University of Brescia
2 MADIREL - Matériaux divisés, interfaces, réactivité, électrochimie
3 LCP - Laboratoire Chimie Provence
4 Department of Experimental Medicine
5 Sensor
6 Mines Saint-Etienne, Center of Microelectronics in Provence, Department of Flexible Electronics, 13541 Gardanne

We report the ability to use TiO 2 nanotube as a guide layer to achieve the vertical growth of ZnO nanorods, in additive-free bath. First, we focused on the anodisation conditions (cell voltage and anodisation time) to produce TiO 2 nanotube thin films grown from a 1.5 µm thick Ti layer sputtered onto Si. Highly organised titania nanotubes were obtained in glycerol viscous electrolyte. In a second step, the electrochemical growth of ZnO grains has been investigated from a zinc nitrate bath at 70°C on both Ti foil and TiO 2 nanotubes. ZnO deposition mechanism has been highlighted through the electrochemical experiments in conjunction with XRD technique and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) examinations. On Ti foils, we show that addition of additives is required to obtain a highly oriented nanostructured ZnO deposit. On TiO 2 nanotubes, additives are not necessary to obtain such a deposit: Titania nanotubes can be used to guide the vertical growth of hybrid nano-architectured ZnO/TiO 2 electrode.

Keywords: composite nano-architectured electrode; zinc oxide; electrochemical methods; titania nanotubes

Domains: Chemical Sciences; Material chemistry

G. Jimenez Cadena, Marielle Eyraud, C. Chassigneux, Florence Vacandio, E. Comini, et al.. Electrochemical fabrication of oriented ZnO nanorods on TiO 2 nanotubes. Int. J. Nanotechnol, 2012, 9 (3/4/5/6/7), pp.3 - 7. ⟨10.1504/IJNT.2012.045333⟩. ⟨hal-02656763⟩