Structural, Carrier Life Time and Optical Properties of Vanadium Doped Tin Oxide Films Developed on Silicon Nanowires for Photo-Catalytic Degradation of Organic Dyes

A series of Vanadium-Doped tin oxide (SnO₂) thin films developed on Silicon nanowires (SiNWs) were synthetized by sol-gel spin coating method and characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), ultraviolet–visible (UV–Vis) absorption and carrier lifetime measurements. Several operational parameters involving, vanadium doping amount and the optical properties of the silicon nanowires on photo-catalytic efficiency were investigated by using Rhodamine B (RhB) as an Organic Dye for the degradation under the illumination of Ultraviolet. Under optimum conditions, SnO₂ doped with 15% of vanadium and deposited on silicon nanowires achieved 89.56% Rhodamine B degradation after 120 min of Ultraviolet illumination.