Functionalized carbon nanotubes decorated with fluorine-doped titanium dioxide nanoparticles on silicon substrate as template for titanium dioxide film photo-anode grown by chemical vapour deposition

Abstract Carbon nanotubes decorated with fluorine-doped titanium dioxide (TiO 2 ) nanoparticles on Silicon substrate serves as a template for improved TiO 2 growth by chemical vapour deposition (CVD). The study analyses and characterizes several growth conditions for the template finding an optimum for enhanced photochemical activity. Even for non-optimized growth conditions for the CVD grown TiO 2 enhancement in photochemical activity is observed when grown on proposed template. With the growth on cheap Si substrates the carbon nanotube-based photo-electrochemical (PEC) electrode has great potential to enhance the PEC activity of TiO 2 grown by CVD at relative low temperature.