Abstract
In the present paper, Bi1−xBaxFeO3 (BBFO) thin films (where x = 0, 0.02 and 0.05) were prepared by a combined sol-gel and spin-coating method. The influence of Ba substitutions on the structural, microstructural, optical properties, and photocatalytic activity of BiFeO3 thin films has been studied. X-ray diffraction pattern correlated with FTIR analysis results confirms that all the films have a perovskite structure of rhombohedral symmetry with an R3m space group. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to investigate the surface morphology and reveals microstructural modifications with the increase in Ba concentration. The optical properties show that the band gap is narrowed after doping with Ba ions and decreases gradually with the increase of doping content. The photocatalytic investigations of deposited films revealed that Ba doping of BFO material leads to the enhancement of photocatalytic response. The present data demonstrates that Bi1−xBaxFeO3 (BBFO) thin films can be used in photocatalytic applications.
Highlights
Today, evolution of modern society leads to a continuous increasing of environmental pollution
This small shifting can be explained by taking into account the higher value of the Ba2+ ionic radius in comparison with that one of Bi3+ which distorts the original structure of pure BFO due to the internal stress induced by Ba ions in the perovskite structure of BFO
The present results can be explained by the fact that Ba doping leads to reducing of the recombination rate of photogenerated e−-h+ pairs which contribute to the formation of reactive radicals and to the improving of photocatalytic response. It was investigated the influence of Ba doping on the structural, microstructural, optical properties, and photocatalytic activity of BFO thin films
Summary
Evolution of modern society leads to a continuous increasing of environmental pollution. Degradation of organic pollutants shows a great interest for photocatalytic applications [1]. TiO2 is the most studied photocatalysts [2,7,8], but the wide band gap (3.2 eV) [8] provides low efficiency of absorption in the visible-light region. This problem leads to the searching for new oxide-based photocatalysts with strong absorbance for visible- light applications. Semiconductor-based photocatalysts are promising materials for degradation of a large number of organic contaminants
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