Aqueous chemical growth of alpha-Fe2O3-alpha-Cr2O3 nanocomposite thin films.

We are reporting here on the inexpensive fabrication and optical properties of an iron(III) oxide-chromium(III) oxide nanocomposite thin film of corundum crystal structure. Its novel and unique-designed architecture consists of uniformed, well-defined and oriented nanorods of Hematite (alpha-Fe2O3) of 50 nm in diameter and 500 nm in length and homogeneously distributed nonaggregated monodisperse spherical nanoparticles of Eskolaite (alpha-Cr2O3) of 250 nm in diameter. This alpha-Fe2O3-alpha-Cr2O3 nanocomposite thin film is obtained by growing, directly onto transparent polycrystalline conducting substrate, an oriented layer of hematite nanorods and growing subsequently, the eskolaite layer. The synthesis is carried out by a template-free, low-temperature, multilayer thin film coating process using aqueous solution of metal salts as precursors. Almost 100% of the light is absorbed by the composite film between 300 and 525 nm and 40% at 800 nm which yields great expectations as photoanode materials for photovoltaic cells and photocatalytic devices.