Growth of rutile TiO nanorods in Ti and Cu ion sequentially implanted SiO and the involved mechanisms.

TiO in nanoscale exhibits unique physicochemical and optoelectronic properties and has attracted much more interest of the researchers. In this work, TiO nanostructures are synthesized in amorphous SiO slices by implanting Ti ions, or sequentially implanting Ti and Cu ions combined with annealing at high temperature. The morphology, structure, spatial distribution and optical properties of the formed nanostructures have been investigated in detail. Our results clearly show that the thermal growth of TiO nanostructures in SiO substrate is significantly enhanced by presence of post Cu ion implantation, which depends strongly on the applied Cu ion fluence, as well as the annealing atmosphere. Due to the formation of CuO in the substrate, rutile TiO nanorods of large size have been well fabricated in the Ti and Cu sequentially implanted SiO after annealing in N atmosphere, in which CuO plays a role as a catalyst. Moreover, the sample with well-fabricated TiO nanorods exhibits a narrowed band gap, an enhanced optical absorption in visible region, and catalase-/peroxidase-like catalytic characteristics. Our findings provide an effective route to fabricate functional TiO nanorods in SiO via ion implantation.