Interfacial Charge Modulation: An Efficient Strategy for Boosting Spatial Charge Separation on Semiconductor Photocatalysts

By Xiaoping Tao, Yuying Gao, Shengyang Wang, Xiaoyu Wang, Yang Liu, Yue Zhao, Fengtao Fan, Michel Dupuis, Rengui Li, Can Li. Advanced Energy Materials, 2019

157 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Surface modulation via injection or extraction of charge carriers in microelectric devices has been used to tune the energy band alignment for desired electrical and optical properties, yet not well recognized in photocatalysis field. Here, taking semiconductor bismuth tantalum oxyhalides (Bi4TaO8X) as examples, chemically inactive molybdenum oxide (MoO3) with a large work function is introduced to qualitatively tune the properties of interfacial charges, achieving an evidently enhanced upward band bending and intensive built‐in electric field. Such a simple charge modulation exhibits a remarkable improvement in photocatalytic water oxidation, reaching an apparent quantum efficiency of 25% at the input wavelength of 420 nm. The validity and generality of surface charge modulating strategy are further demonstrated using other semiconductors (e.g., C3N4) and decorators (e.g., V2O5). The findings not only provide a promising strategy for rationally manipulating the interfacial built‐in electric field in photocatalysis but also pave the way to learn from microelectronic technologies to construct artificial photosynthesis systems for solar energy conversion.

Subfields: Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Materials Chemistry, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/eb679b480b111fcd7977308a23e1b7a788e3b167

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Electrical and Electronic Engineering

1. W. Shi
2. Y. Guo
3. Yongfa Zhu

In Materials Chemistry

1. W. Shi
2. Y. Guo
3. Yongfa Zhu

In Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

1. W. Shi
2. Y. Guo
3. Yongfa Zhu

Citations in the corpus

• Internal electric field engineering for steering photogenerated charge separation and enhancing photoactivity (2019, methodology): “We took semiconductor Bi4TaO8X (X = Cl, Br) and chemically inactive MoO3 with a large work function, named charge modulator, as an example to explain the effect of IEF on the migration of photogenerated charge at the interface.(45) When MoO3 is introduced on the surface of Bi4TaO8X, the electrons su”