Interfacial Modulation with Aluminum Oxide for Efficient Plasmon-Induced Water Oxidation

Bin Zeng, Shengyang Wang, Yuying Gao, Guanna Li, Wenming Tian, Jittima Meeprasert, Hao Li, Huichen Xie, Fengtao Fan, Rengui Li*, Can Li*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

39 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Plasmon-induced photocatalysts hold great promise for solar energy conversion owing to their strong light-harvesting ability and tunable optical properties. However, the complex process of interfacial extraction of hot carriers and the roles of metal/semiconductor interfaces in plasmonic photocatalysts are still not clearly understood. Herein, the manipulation of the interface between a plasmon metal (Au) and a semiconductor (rutile TiO2) by introducing an interfacial metal oxide (Al2O3) is reported. The resulting Au/Al2O3/TiO2 exhibits remarkable enhancement in photocatalytic water oxidation activity compared with Au/TiO2, giving an apparent quantum efficiency exceeding 1.3% at 520 nm for photocatalytic water oxidation. Such an interfacial modulation approach significantly prolongs the lifetime of hot carriers in the Au/TiO2 system, which conclusively improves the utilization of hot carriers for plasmon-induced water oxidation reaction upon irradiation. This work emphasizes the essential role of the interfacial structure in plasmonic devices and provides an alternative method for designing efficient plasmonic photocatalysts for solar energy conversion.

Original languageEnglish
Article number2005688
Number of pages8
JournalAdvanced Functional Materials
Volume31
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 4 Nov 2020
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • charge separations
  • interfacial modulations
  • plasmonic photocatalysts
  • water oxidations

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