Study of growth parameters on structural properties of TiO2 nanowires

Abstract

In this article, the effect of growth parameters on structural properties of TiO2 nanowires, synthesized by thermal evaporation process, have been studied. The nanostructures are characterized by scanning electron microscopy and X-ray spectroscopy. Our synthesized TiO2 nanowires were found, through X-ray diffraction measurements, to be crystalline rutile TiO2. We studied the effect of growth parameters such as the deposition temperature, the system pressure, and carrier gas flow on the growth and structure of our synthesized nanowires. It was found that their growth was governed by vapor–liquid–solid mechanism because of using Au catalyst. In this mechanism, the Ti layer deposited on the substrate diffused in to the solid Au catalyst; then, a liquid alloy of Au-Ti was formed to serve as preferred sites for the growth of TiO2 nanowires.