Determination of Surface Morphology of TiO2 nanostructure using synchrotron X-ray standing wave technique

TL;DR

This study uses synchrotron X-ray standing wave techniques to accurately determine the surface morphology of TiO2 nanostructures synthesized via laser pyrolysis, relevant for applications in photovoltaics and catalysis.

Contribution

It introduces a combined approach of XSW, X-ray reflectivity, and GIXRD for detailed surface morphology analysis of TiO2 nanostructures.

Findings

XSW measurements agree with TEM and GIXRD results

Optimized laser pyrolysis produces highly pure, mono-dispersed TiO2 nanoparticles

Surface morphology characterized effectively using synchrotron techniques

Abstract

Nanostructures of Titanium oxide (TiO2) are being studied for many promising applications, e.g., solar photovoltaics, solar water splitting for H2 fuel generation etc., due to their excellent photo-catalytic properties. We have synthesized low-dimensional TiO2 nanoparticles by gas phase CW CO2 laser pyrolysis. The laser synthesis process has been optimized for the deposition of highly pure, nearly mono-dispersed TiO2 nanoparticles on silicon substrates. Hard x-ray standing wave-field (XSW) measurements in total reflection geometry were carried out on the BL-16 beamline of Indus-2 synchrotron radiation facility in combination with x-ray reflectivity and grazing incidence x-ray fluorescence measurements for the determination of surface morphology of the deposited TiO2 nanostructures. The average particle size of TiO2 nanostructure estimated using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) was found to closely agree with the XSW and grazing incidence x-ray diffraction (GIXRD) results.