Irradiation of solids with swift heavy ions often results in material modifications and alteration in the structural, morphological and photoelectrochemical (PEC) properties of the material [1]. The present paper investigates the effect of 120 MeV Ag⁹⁺ rradiation on nanostructured α-Fe₂O₃/TiO₂ bilayered thin films prepared by the spray pyrolysis/sol-gel method respectively at various ion fluence. To study irradiation induced changes on the film properties, the obtained films were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Raman spectroscopy, UV-visible absorption spectroscopy, atomic force microscopy (AFM) and photoelectrochemical (PEC) study. XRD pattern showed notable change in the crystallinity of the material with increasing ion fluence. The similar results was obtained from the Raman spectrum of the material. AFM image and XRD exhibited a change in crystallite size with the fluence of irradiation from 27 to 42 nm. Good absorption in visible region was obtained for all samples from UV-visible studies. These unirradiated/irradiated thin films were used as photoelectrode in PEC cell and irradiated thin films have shown better photocurrent density in comparison to unirradiated film.

 [1] Singh et al. J Phys. Chem. C, 114 (2010) 622.