In conclusion, we first reported the synthesized Si/TiO2 composites
nanowire dominated with a rutile phase by a low temperature
hydrothermal method. The average diameter of TiO2/Si composites
nanowires are 16.3 and 28.1 nm for Si content of 16.7 and
37.5 wt%, respectively, compared to TiO2 nanowire which is
15.4 nm. The XRD result showed that the as-prepared Si/TiO2 composite
nanowires mainly consisted of rutile phase and a small
amount of anatase phase, while TiO2 nanowires mainly consisted
of anatase phase. The Raman spectroscopy shown consistency with
the XRD analysis i.e. mainly having rutile phase. The band gap
value of Si/TiO2 exhibited lower band gap (3.18–3.23 eV) compared
to TiO2 nanowire, 3.64 eV. We could suggested that the incorporation
of silicon into matrix TiO2 promotes the formation of
rutile rather than anatase phase titanium dioxide nanowires. The
result also suggested that the substitution of Si into TiO2 lattice
distorts the a and c axis of TiO2, which causes the formation of tensile
stress as well as increasing the diameter of nanowires as the Si
content increased. Even though the Si content was set at 16.7 to
37.5 wt%, this rather high percentage has not disrupted the crystalline
nature of rutile TiO2. These Si/TiO2 nanowires have potential
applications in water splitting and Dye sensitized solar cell
applications.