Photoluminescence and photocatalytic activities of Ag/ZnO metal-semiconductor heterostructure

Abstract

Present article focuses on the photocatalytic activities of ZnO nanorods and Ag/ZnO heterostructure deposited on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate. ZnO nanorods are synthesized by thermal decomposition technique and Ag nanoparticles deposition is done by photo-deposition technique using UV light. X-ray diffraction studies reveal that the ZnO nanorods are of hexagonal wurtzite structure. Further, as-prepared samples are characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy and UV-Vis spectroscopy. The surface plasmon resonance response of Ag/ZnO is found at 420 nm. The photocatalytic activities of the samples are evaluated by photocatalytic decolorization of methyl orange (MO) dye with UV irradiation. The degradation rate of MO increases with increase in irradiation time. The degradation of MO follows the first order kinetics. The photocatalytic activity of Ag/ZnO heterostructure is found to be more than that of ZnO nanorods. The PL intensity of ZnO nanorods is stronger than that of the Ag/ZnO heterostructure. The strong PL intensity indicates high recombination rate of photoinduced charge carriers which lowers the photocatalytic activity of ZnO nanorods. The charge carrier recombination is effectively suppressed by introducing Ag nanoparticles on the surface of the ZnO nanorods. This study demonstrates a strong relationship between PL intensity and photocatalytic activity.