LAUSR

In this work, a solution combustion followed by dissolution in hydrogen peroxide is adopted to achieve a precursor for decorating anatase TiO2 nanosheets along single-crystalline rutile TiO2 nanorods, which achieves balsam-pear-like core/shell nanorod arrays with enhanced photoelectrochemical water splitting. The photocurrent of the rutile/anatase nanorods is about 1.4 times and 20.7 times that of the rutile nanorods and the anatase nanosheets at 0.8 V vs SCE, respectively. The enhanced photoelectrochemical performance is attributed to the novel nanoarchitecture, which can simultaneously offer high surface area, enhanced light-harvesting, rutile/anatase junction for charge carrier separation and conductive pathway for charge carrier collection. The photoanode design can also give hints to other functional materials.