Enhancement of the photoelectrochemical properties of TiO2 nanofibers supported on Ti sheets by polyol-made CdSe quantum-dots impregnation

Abstract Hetero-nanostructures with improved photoelectrochemical properties were assembled by impregnating well-crystallized CdSe quantum-dots onto TiO2 nanofibers on a Ti substrate. A significant enhancement of the photocurrent density was observed for the resulting CdSe-TiO2/Ti photoanode in a photoelectrochemical cell under solar simulated illumination: 0.138 mA.cm−2 (versus 0.008 mA.cm−2 on TiO2/Ti photoanode), at room temperature and zero-bias in a Na2S-Na2SO3 (0.25 M, pH = 7.0) electrolyte solution. Our results highlight the improvement in visible-light utilization by a facile quantum-dot sensitization of TiO2.