Abstract
Plasmonic metal/semiconductor composites have attracted great attention for efficient solar energy harvesting in photovoltaic and photocatalytic applications owing to their extremely high visible-light absorption and tuned effective band gap. In this work, Ag-loaded TiO2 nanocolumn (Ag-TNC) arrays were fabricated based on anodic aluminum oxide (AAO) template by combining atomic layer deposition (ALD) and vacuum evaporation. The effects of the Ag loading position and deposition thickness, and the morphology, structure and composition of Ag-deposited TNC arrays on its optical and photocatalytic properties were studied. The Ag-filled TiO2 (AFT) nanocolumn arrays exhibited higher removal efficiency of methylene blue (MB) compared with Ag-coated TiO2 (ACT) nanocolumn arrays and pure TiO2 nanocolumns arrays. Both experimental and theoretical simulation results demonstrated that the enhanced photocatalytic performance of AFT nanocolumn arrays was attributed to the surface plasmon resonance (SPR) of Ag and the absorption of light by TiO2. These results represent a promising step forward to the development of high-performance photocatalysts for energy conversion and storage.
Highlights
Since 1972, when Shimada and Honda discovered the photocatalysis of titanium dioxide (TiO2) under ultraviolet light, research in this field has continued to grow [1]
Many efforts have been devoted to solve these problems with the aim of improving the catalytic performance of TiO2, which include doping with nonmetal elements [8], dye sensitization [9], and combination with metal elements or other metal oxides [10]
When Ag particles are combined with TiO2, the photocatalytic performance of the film can be significantly enhanced by hot electron injection [24], localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) [25], and plasma excitation light scattering [26,27]
Summary
Since 1972, when Shimada and Honda discovered the photocatalysis of titanium dioxide (TiO2) under ultraviolet light, research in this field has continued to grow [1]. When Ag particles are combined with TiO2, the band gap of the resulting Ag-TNC film is narrowed under the action of LSPR and hot electron injection, and the samples have absorption peaks in the visible part.
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