Preparation of thin PbTiO3 Nanotubes by the Electrophoretic Deposition Method

TL;DR

This paper presents a simple, cost-effective sol-gel electrophoresis method for growing high-quality, ultra-thin PbTiO3 nanotubes within porous alumina templates, with controlled wall thickness below 20 nm.

Contribution

It introduces a novel application of sol-gel electrophoresis for fabricating ultra-thin PbTiO3 nanotubes with precise thickness control, which was not previously achievable.

Findings

Nanotubes with thickness below 20 nm can be produced.

The wall thickness is uniform and controllable by deposition time.

The method is simple, inexpensive, and yields high-quality nanotube arrays.

Abstract

Sol-gel electrophoresis is used to grow PbTiO3 nanotube arrays in porous anodic alumina template channels, because it is a cheap and simple method for the growth of nanostructures and has the advantage of better tube growth control. Moreover, this method can produce nanotubes with high quality and more condense structures. In this technique, semiconductor porous anodic alumina templates are used to grow the nanotube arrays. Consequently, close-packed PbTiO3 nanotube arrays are grown in the template channels. It is shown here that, to the best of our knowledge, sol-gel electrophoresis is the only method, applicable for producing PbTiO3 nanotubes with thickness below 20 nm (section 3.3). Also, the effect of deposition time on the wall thickness is investigated, for a fix electrophoresis voltage. The thickness of the grown nanotubes is uniform; an important issue for the ferroelectric properties of the deposited nanolayers for future investigations.