Structural, Morphological, Topographical Characterization of Titanium Dioxide Nanotubes Metal Substrates for Solar Cell Application

Abstract

High demand on energy conversion in DSSC, requires development of well-organized TiO2 nanotube structures because of their large surface area-to-volume ratio, superior lifetime and provision of optimal pathways for electron percolation. In this work multi-layered Titanium dioxide nanotubes (MTNTs) have been fabricated by an electrochemical anodization technique. MTNTs were annealed at 350‚°C, 450‚°C, 550‚°C and 650‚°C. The structural and morphological properties of the MTNTs have been evaluated by XRD, Confocal Raman Microscopy (CRM) through Large Area Scan (LAS), Depth Profiling (DP) and SEM analysis. SEM-EDX has been employed for element elucidation of TNTs. SEM analysis has revealed the change in surface with increase in annealing temperature. Moreover SEM analysis has revealed the presence of porous and MTNTs for the samples annealed at 350‚°C and 650‚°C with modal pore size of 35.56 nm and 31.05 nm respectively. EDX analysis has revealed that the fabricated MTNTs consist of Ti and O atoms. CRM has confirmed the presence of Anatase phase TiO2 with Raman vibration modes at 142.37 cm-1, 199.04 cm-1, 394.67 cm-1, 516.16 cm-1 and 639.29 cm-1with the Rutile phase TiO2 with Raman vibration modes at 445.26 cm-1 and 612.07 cm-1. The XRD analysis has revealed that the MTNTs consist of multiphase Anatase and Rutile phase depending on the annealing temperature. AFM has confirmed the existence of porous nano-tubular structure for all samples.