Scientific Reports (Jul 2017)

Enhanced photoelectrochemical properties of nanocrystalline TiO2 electrode by surface sensitization with CuxO quantum dots

  • Jiajia Tao,
  • Zhaoqi Sun,
  • Yunlang Cheng,
  • Miao Zhang,
  • Jianguo Lv,
  • Shiwei Shi,
  • Gang He,
  • Xishun Jiang,
  • Xiaoshuang Chen,
  • Xingzhi Wang,
  • Zhuang Wang,
  • Zezhou Gong

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-05645-x
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 7, no. 1
pp. 1 – 9

Abstract

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Abstract Nanoporous anatase TiO2 films were fabricated by a screen-printing method, and CuxO quantum dots (QDs) were deposited on the TiO2 films through successive ionic layer adsorption and reaction (SILAR). The amount of CuxO QDs on the TiO2 films are controlled by changing the number of SILAR cycles. The morphology, microstructure, optical, and photoelectrochemical properties of different CuxO sensitized TiO2 films (CuxO/TiO2) were investigated in detail. The nanoporous TiO2 film offers a large surface area for anchoring QDs. QD deposited samples exhibited a significant improvement in photoelectrochemical performance than the bare of TiO2. CuxO/TiO2, prepared with 7 SILAR cycles, showed the best photoelectrochemical properties, where the photocurrent density was enhanced to 500.01 μA/cm2 compared with 168.88 μA/cm2 of bare TiO2 under visible light. These results indicate that the designed CuxO/TiO2 structure possesses superior charge separation efficiency and photoelectrochemical properties.