Issue 79, 2016, Issue in Progress
From the journal:

RSC Advances

Structural, optical and photo-electrochemical properties of hydrothermally grown ZnO nanorods arrays covered with α-Fe2O3 nanoparticles†

Mohua Chakraborty,a   Dhrubojyoti Roy,b   Amrita Biswas,c   R. Thangavel*a  and  G. Udayabhanuc  

* Corresponding authors

a Solar Energy Research Laboratory, Department of Applied Physics, Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad 826 004, India
E-mail: thangavel.r.ap@ismdhanbad.ac.in, rthangavel@gmail.com

b Samtel Centre for Display Technologies, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh 208 016, India

c Department of Applied Chemistry, Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad 826 004, India

Abstract

A low cost hydrothermal method and subsequent wet-chemical process has been used for the preparation of a ZnO nanorod (NR) array film grown on tin doped indium oxide (ITO) coated glass substrates, post decorated by α-Fe2O3 nanoparticles (NPs). The effect of the amount of α-Fe2O3 NPs on the properties of ZnO NRs such as electron scattering, surface roughness, photo-charge transport and interface recombination has been investigated. Furthermore, the optimized α-Fe2O3 NPs@ZnO exhibited enhanced light absorption, charge separation and charge transport properties, as characterized by UV-vis absorption spectra and the photo-electrochemical characterization by Linear Sweep Voltammetry (LSV) and Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS). An optimum amount of α-Fe2O3 NPs on the ZnO NRs enhanced the photocurrent density by 163% and the photo-conversion efficiency by more than 2.5 times compared to those of the bare ZnO NRs. These results indicated that the prepared α-Fe2O3 NPs@ZnO NRs could serve as an efficient photo-electrode material for photo-electrochemical cells.

Graphical abstract: Structural, optical and photo-electrochemical properties of hydrothermally grown ZnO nanorods arrays covered with α-Fe2O3 nanoparticles

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Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/C6RA15752A
Article type
Paper
Submitted
17 Jun 2016
Accepted
02 Aug 2016
First published
02 Aug 2016

RSC Adv., 2016,6, 75063-75072

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Structural, optical and photo-electrochemical properties of hydrothermally grown ZnO nanorods arrays covered with α-Fe2O3 nanoparticles

M. Chakraborty, D. Roy, A. Biswas, R. Thangavel and G. Udayabhanu, RSC Adv., 2016, 6, 75063 DOI: 10.1039/C6RA15752A

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