Abstract
Phase pure thin film Bi2Ti2O7 photoelectrodes were produced by aerosol assisted chemical vapour deposition at 600°C for the first time. X-ray diffraction analysis showed that the as-deposited Bi2Ti2O7 films were amorphous in nature; however, post-deposition annealing at 600°C for 12h significantly increased the crystallinity to give phase pure Bi2Ti2O7. Scanning electron microscopy revealed that the as-deposited film had a cauliflower-like structure with features ranging from 0.5 to 1.0μm in size. It was found that the post-annealing step sintered the features together reducing the pores in the structure and giving rise to larger features of 1.0–2.0μm in size. Optical studies showed that the Bi2Ti2O7 film had a direct band gap of 2.74eV. The photoelectrochemical properties of Bi2Ti2O7 were tested and it was found that the electrodes exhibited a photocurrent density of 1.8μAcm−2 at 0.23V vs. Ag|AgCl. Results showed that Bi2Ti2O7 is an attractive material for photoelectrochemical water splitting.
Highlights
Pyrochlores are a class of material with the general structure A2B2O7 which consists of an interpenetrating cuprite-type A2O tetrahedral framework with a corner sharing BO6 octahedron [1]
We report the photoelectrochemical properties of Bi2Ti2O7 thin films
Bi2Ti2O7 thin films were produced by Aerosol assisted chemical vapour deposition (AACVD) at 600 1C on FTO glass substrates
Summary
Pyrochlores are a class of material with the general structure A2B2O7 which consists of an interpenetrating cuprite-type A2O tetrahedral framework with a corner sharing BO6 octahedron [1]. The photocatalytic properties of Bi2Ti2O7 in particular have been attractive due to the fact that it has a narrower band gap ( $ 2.8 eV) than that of widely studied TiO2 [3,4] whilst maintaining suitable band energetics (i.e. for water splitting reactions).
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