Synthesis and characteristics study of TiO2 nanowires and nanoflowers on FTO/glass and glass substrates via hydrothermal technique

In this work, a typical hydrothermal synthesis to grow long, high density, vertically aligned, well oriented and homogenous TiO2 nanowires arrays and flower-like film on conductive and nonconductive (glass) sides of fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO-glass) substrate are presented. Under the same conditions, the TiO2 nanowires arrays were directly grown on the FTO coated side. While the flower-like nanostructures were grown on the glass side. Two cleaned FTO-glass samples were placed inside the autoclave cylinder. The samples were placed at horizontal and inclined at 45A degrees respectively. The average diameter and length of nanowires are 150 nm and 7.0 mu m respectively. Also the average diameter of the prepared flower-like nanostructure of TiO2 is a parts per thousand 5-10 A mu m. The flower-like nanostructure growth was confirmed in the absence of FTO by scratched line made on conductive side. The optical propertied of the TiO2 flower-like nanostructures was also investigated. The synthesized products were characterized by SEM equipped with EDS, XRD and UV-VIS NIR spectrophotometer.