The effect of silver doped in zinc oxide nanorods on titanium dioxide seeded substrate synthesized by binary solution technique

Abstract

Non-doped and Ag-doped ZnO nanorods were fabricated on TiO2 seed layer by using two methods (binary method), a spin-coating technique for the deposition of TiO2 seed layer and a solution-immersion method for the growth of ZnO nanorods. Varied quantities, 0.5 at%, 1.0 at%, 1.5 at%, 2.0 at% and 2.5 at%, of Ag-doped ZnO/TiO2 had an effect on the morphological, optical and structural properties of ZnO, and this was investigated by using FESEM, UV-vis and XRD. FESEM images revealed the morphology as nanorods and 1.5 at% of Ag dopant produced the smallest nanorod diameter. UV-vis and XRD results also indicate that 1.5 at% of Ag dopant showed the highest absorbance and highest intensity, which supports the FESEM results. Thus, 1.5 at% Ag dopant showed very good potential to produce a good optical property due to high crystallinity, small nanorod size with high absorption in the UV region compared to the other samples.