Fabrication of Ni-Doped PbTiO3-Coated TiO2 Nanorod Arrays for Improved Photoelectrochemical Performance

The performance of bare TiO2 photoanodes in photoelectrochemical devices and other applications is suboptimal due to the narrow light absorption range and poor electron-hole separation. Here, heterostructured films of Ni-doped lead titanate (PbTi1−xNixO3, PTN)-coated titania (TiO2) nanorod arrays were fabricated via a two-step process comprising hydrothermal and sol-gel methods. In the PTN/TiO2 composite films, the PTN component served as a visible light-responsive photosensitizer and the TiO2 nanorod was the electron transport layer. When applied as photoanodes, the PTN/TiO2 films achieved the maximum photoconversion efficiency of ~2.6% and a photocurrent intensity of about 4 times higher than that of the PbTiO3/TiO2 film. These results demonstrate that the ferroelectric material-coated TiO2 heterostructured films have high potential for application in photoelectric and optical devices.