Crystal Growth and Design of Disk/Filament ZnO-Decorated 1D TiO Composite Ceramics for Photoexcited Device Applications.

Disk- and filament-like ZnO crystals were decorated on one-dimensional TiO nanostructures (TiO-ZnO) through various integrated physical and chemical synthesis methods. The morphology of the ZnO crystals on TiO varied with the chemical synthesis method used. ZnO nanodisks decorated with TiO nanorods (TiO-ZnO-C) were synthesized using the chemical bath deposition method, and ZnO filament-like crystals decorated with TiO nanorods (TiO-ZnO-H) were synthesized through the hydrothermal method. Compared with the pristine TiO nanorods, the as-synthesized TiO-ZnO composites exhibited enhanced photophysiochemical performance. Furthermore, because of their fast electron transportation and abundant surface active sites, the ZnO nanodisks in the TiO-ZnO-C composite exhibited a higher photoactivity than those in the TiO-ZnO-H composite. The morphology and crystal quality of the ZnO decoration layer were manipulated using different synthesis methods to realize disk- or filament-like ZnO-decorated TiO composites with various photoactive performance levels.