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Journal of Advanced Ceramics 2017, 6(1): 1-10 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40145-016-0209-x
Research Article | Open Access | Issue | Published: 02 March 2017

Enhanced photocatalytic activity in Ag-nanoparticle-dispersed BaTiO3 composite thin films: Role of charge transfer

Show Author's Information Suwei ZHANG,  Bo-ping ZHANG( ),  Shun LI,  Zhicheng HUANG,  Chushu YANG,  Huiying WANG
Beijing Municipal Key Laboratory of New Energy Materials and Technologies, School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China
Keywords:
charge transfer (CT), composite films, photocatalytic activity, surface plasmon resonance (SPR)
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ZHANG S, ZHANG B-p, LI S, et al. Enhanced photocatalytic activity in Ag-nanoparticle-dispersed BaTiO3 composite thin films: Role of charge transfer. Journal of Advanced Ceramics, 2017, 6(1): 1-10. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40145-016-0209-x
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Abstract Full text About this article

Optical absorption and photocatalytic activity can be enhanced by surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect, but the charge transfer (CT) mechanism between the dispersed noble metal nanoparticles (NPs) and the semiconductor matrix has been ignored. Herein, we adduce a direct and strong evidence in Ag-nanoparticle-dispersed BaTiO3 (Ag/BTO) composite films through X-ray photoelectron and photoluminescence spectra which reveals the CT from BTO trapped by Ag NPs under UV light and from Ag NPs to BTO under visible light. Owing to the broadened optical absorption and efficient CT from Ag NPs to BTO, the Ag25/BTO film manifests the optimal photocatalytic activity under the irradiation of visible light rather than UV–Vis light. Our work provides a helpful insight to design highly efficient plasmonic photocatalyst through considering the synergetic effect of the CT between metal and semiconductor on the enhanced photocatalytic activity.


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About this article

Enhanced photocatalytic activity in Ag-nanoparticle-dispersed BaTiO3 composite thin films: Role of charge transfer

Show Author's information Suwei ZHANG, Bo-ping ZHANG( ), Shun LI, Zhicheng HUANG, Chushu YANG, Huiying WANG
Beijing Municipal Key Laboratory of New Energy Materials and Technologies, School of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China

Abstract

Optical absorption and photocatalytic activity can be enhanced by surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect, but the charge transfer (CT) mechanism between the dispersed noble metal nanoparticles (NPs) and the semiconductor matrix has been ignored. Herein, we adduce a direct and strong evidence in Ag-nanoparticle-dispersed BaTiO3 (Ag/BTO) composite films through X-ray photoelectron and photoluminescence spectra which reveals the CT from BTO trapped by Ag NPs under UV light and from Ag NPs to BTO under visible light. Owing to the broadened optical absorption and efficient CT from Ag NPs to BTO, the Ag25/BTO film manifests the optimal photocatalytic activity under the irradiation of visible light rather than UV–Vis light. Our work provides a helpful insight to design highly efficient plasmonic photocatalyst through considering the synergetic effect of the CT between metal and semiconductor on the enhanced photocatalytic activity.

Keywords: charge transfer (CT), composite films, photocatalytic activity, surface plasmon resonance (SPR)

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Publication history
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Publication history

Received: 08 July 2017
Revised: 09 September 2017
Accepted: 09 February 2018
Published: 02 March 2017
Issue date: March 2017

Copyright

© The author(s) 2016

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51272023 and 51472026) and Specialized Research Fund for the Doctoral Program of Higher Education (Grant No. 20130006110006).

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Open Access The articles published in this journal are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons. org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

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