Effect of concentration of Fe-dopant on the photoelectrochemical properties of Titania nanotube arrays

TiO2 nanotubes have attracted great attention because of their photoelectrochemical activity. Metallic doping using a simple and rapid synthesizing approach can be a way to enhance this application. This paper describes a novel one-step anodization synthesis of Fe-doped TiO2 nanotubes with various concentrations of iron doping. FESEM, XRD, and EDX were used to analyze the effect of doping concentration on the morphology, structure, and composition of the prepared samples respectively, and the results showed the formation of the anatase phase of TiO2 nanotube arrays with Fe incorporation in the TiO2 lattice. Although the Fe insertion in the TiO2 lattice leads to better crystallinity, the non-uniformity in the morphology of doped samples suggests that adequate doping is required to maintain uniformity in the morphology. The absorption spectra of all the Fe-doped TiO2 samples showed a red shift in their absorption edges compared to pristine TiO2. This shift was observed more in the samples with higher doping concentrations. The photocurrent density of Fe-doped samples was observed to be significantly higher than that of the pristine TiO2 sample. This improvement was found to be concentration-dependent, with the best results being obtained from a sample doped at a level of 0.5%. The samples also showed high photostability, which, together with the increased photocurrent density, points to Fe-doped TiO2 as a promising photoanode material.