The present work reports a facile approach to the one-pot solution growth of vertically

aligned, doped ZnO nanorod (NR) arrays by chemical bath deposition (CBD). The effects of

dopant ions on the final morphologies, electronic band structures and donor densities of

ZnO NRs were examined. With the introduction of dopants, the optical band gap energies

of the samples were reduced. The photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting performances

of the doped ZnO NRs were tested. When compared with pristine ZnO NRs, the doped ZnO

NRs demonstrated an improvement of at least 15% in the PEC water splitting activity. Nadoped ZnO NRs was the most efficient photoanode, where its photocurrent density was 2.1

times greater than that of pristine ZnO NRs. The mechanism for improved PEC performance was proposed