Preparation and characterisation of TiO₂–SnO₂binary oxide nanotubes

Abstract

The nanotubular architectures of metal oxides have emerged as a fascinating class of nanomaterials because of their superior performance in numerous applications, such as gas sensing, drug delivery and electronic and optoelectronic device. One of the most powerful and now extensively synthesising methods for nanotube (NT) structures relies on solid state templates and sol-gel to control the diameter and length of nanostructures. Among the metal oxides, TiO 2 and SnO 2 are the functional semiconductor oxides for their wide applications in nanodevice. It is meaningful to prepare the TiO 2 oxide NT compositing the SnO 2 component. In this work, the synthesis of nanotubular architectured composite materials consisting of TiO 2 and SnO 2 by the combination of the sol-gel chemical method and the anodic aluminium oxide templating method is reported. The method can control the diameter and tube end morphology, and the as obtained products were characterised by X-ray diffractometry, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy and energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry. The diameter of the composite NT is y150 nm with open tube end. The composite NTs are composed of mixed oxides of Sn, O and Ti. The mechanisms of formation of NTs have been elucidated. The reported results are expected to have a significant impact on synthesising other binary oxide NTs.

E-beam evaporated hydrophobic metal oxide thin films as carrier transport materials for large scale perovskite solar cells

“…Thin metal-oxide films are essential in developing microelectronic and optoelectronic devices where they could be integrated as buffer layers to control the charge carrier transportation [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. This is due to their suitable electronic, structural and optical properties, where their microstructure and morphology play central and critical roles [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. As studied such metal-oxide films have been practically developed to support nanocomposites cathode in lithiumsulphur battery, nanostructured hybrid solar cells, photocatalytic applications, gas sensors and UV photodetectors.…”

“…In general, inorganic n-type or p-type oxide materials grown at low temperature inside physical vapour deposition process tools offer the advantages of reducing device fabrication cost and enhancing device stability through resistance to moisture. Among inorganic carrier transport materials, few metal oxide materials have demonstrated the capabilities of fulfiling operational device requirements, this includes titanium oxide (TiO x ) [1,2,3], tin oxide (SnO x ) [9,10,11,12,13], molybdenum oxide (MoO x ) [6] and nickel oxide (NiO) [7,8]. Indeed, high carrier mobility and a pristine electrical interface with the absorbing layer are critical requirements to minimise carrier recombination of the device.…”