TiO/Pt/Au multilayer nanorods were fabricated by template-assisted electrodeposition and thermal conversion of an electrodeposited TiO precursor.Layer thicknesses were tuned by charge and deposition time to yield reproducible multilayers.The nanorods autonomously propelled in 2 wt% HO via self-electrophoresis, showing higher velocity under ultraviolet irradiation than in the dark.Reversible ON/OFF velocity modulation was observed.The enhanced propulsion is consistent with photocatalytic reactions at the TiO segment that are suggested to increase the self-electrophoretic driving force, although direct phase identification of TiO and full mechanistic assignment await further characterization.
Shitanda et al. (Thu,) studied this question.