Effect of anodization conditions on the synthesis of TiO 2 nanopores
- PDF / 11,767,590 Bytes
- 6 Pages / 612 x 792 pts (letter) Page_size
- 104 Downloads / 225 Views
0951-E09-27
Effect of Anodization Conditions on the Synthesis of TiO2 Nanopores Subhasish Chatterjee1,2, Miriam Ginzberg1, and Bonnie Gersten1 1 Chemistry, Queens College, 65-30 Kissena Blvd., Flushing, NY, 11367 2 Chemistry, The Graduate Center of CUNY, New York, NY, 10016
ABSTRACT
Nanoporous structures play a promising role in the development of nanomechanical, nanoelectrical and biosensing devices. In addition, nanopores can be utilized as chemical and gas sensors. TiO2 is a semiconductor material, which can have a wide range of applications in nanopore-based sensors. In this study, TiO2 nanopores were prepared by electrochemical anodization. Titanium was used as the anode, while platinum was used as the cathode in an electrochemical cell filled with a hydrofluoric acid electrolyte solution. During the preparation process, titanium was converted to its oxide form. Nanostructures were synthesized under varying physical conditions, including HF concentrations of 0.5-10% and anodization times of 530 minutes. The resulting nanopore structures were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). With a progressive increase in HF concentration (from 0.5% to 10%), the diameter of the nanopores decreased, from approximately 100 nm in diameter to 50 nm. The nanopores showed a transformation from tube-like structures to pore networks with increased HF concentration or anodization time. The results show that the dimensions and morphology of the nanopores can be controlled by alteration of the anodization conditions.
INTRODUCTION Nanoporous materials have drawn significant interest, because of their versatile applications in fields such as optics [1], electronics [2], catalysis [3] and biosensing [4]. Various nanostructures, including nanopores and nanotubes, have been fabricated to manufacture nanoscale devices for chemical and biosensing processes [5]. Titanium dioxide (TiO2) has emerged as an important oxide material in the development of nanopore based sensors [4]. The high refractive index (n=2.4) and semiconductive properties of TiO2 are of great importance in photocatalytic and gas sensing processes [6, 7]. Since anodic oxidation of titanium metal can produce nano-architectured porous materials [8], the anodization process is a way to design large arrays of nanopores with variable size, shape and morphology.
Recently, various in-vitro experiments have been conducted to describe the voltage driven transport of single stranded (ss) DNA through synthetic nanoporous structures [9,10] and protein, suspended in a lipid layer [11]. The investigation of the voltage driven translocation of polynucleic acids (e.g. DNA, RNA) through nanopore structures has given rise to the idea of developing novel nanopore based biosensing devices and DNA sequencing techniques [11]. Since inorganic nanostructures display chemical, mechanical and thermal rigidity in diverse experimental conditions, their nanoporous environment can be adjusted [12]. Accordingly, solidstate nanopores made of oxide materials have an advantage over biolog
Data Loading...
