Single-walled TiO2 Nanotubes: Enhanced Carrier-transport Properties by TiCl4-Treatment

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that TiCl4 treatment significantly improves electron transport in TiO2 nanotubes, leading to enhanced photoelectrochemical performance, with up to 70% faster electron transport times.

Contribution

It introduces a TiCl4-treatment process that enhances carrier transport properties in TiO2 nanotubes beyond previous methods.

Findings

Electron transport times improved by up to 70%.

TiCl4-treatment causes particle decoration and enhances electron mobility.

Photoelectrochemical performance is significantly increased.

Abstract

In the present work we report significant enhancement of the photoelectrochemical properties of self-organized TiO2 nanotubes by a combined de-coring of classic nanotubes followed by an appropiate TiCl4-treatment. We show that, except for the expected particle decoration, a key effect of the TiCl4 treatment is that the electron transport characteristics in TiO2 nanotubes can be drastically improved, e.g. we observe an enhancement of up to 70 % in electron transport times.