Steerable light-driven TiO2-Fe Janus micromotor

In order to reduce the cost and simplify the fabrication process of light-driven micro/nanomotors and, we prepared TiO2-Fe Janus micromotors based on economic metal Fe and traditional photocatalyst TiO2 which have attractive photocatalytic propulsion and efficient direction control. The Janus structure and the materials of TiO2-Fe micromotors were characterized and confirmed by a scanning electron microscope, an Energy Dispersive Spectrometer and an X-ray diffraction system. In addition, we systematically studied the effects of fuel concentration and light intensity on the motor motion, the motor speed increasing with the enhancement of fuel concentration or light intensity. Finally, we investigated the direction control of such micromtors under an external magnetic field. The direction can be efficiently controlled by adjusting the direction of magnetic field. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.