Directed electrochemical synthesis of ZnO/PDMcT core/shell nanorod arrays with enhanced photoelectrochemical properties

In this paper, we demonstrate a simple two-step electrochemical deposition strategy for synthesizing ZnO/Poly(2,5-dimercapto-1,3,4-thiadiazole) (PDMcT) core/shell nanorod arrays. The as-synthesized ZnO/PDMcT samples are characterized by Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR), Raman spectroscopy, power X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The ZnO/PDMcT nanorod arrays are found to exhibit significantly enhanced photocurrent density in photoelectrochemical cell applications as compared to the prinstine ZnO nanorod arrays.