title: Enhanced ferroelectric-nanocrystal-based hybrid photocatalysis by ultrasonic-wave-generated piezophototronic effect.
abstract: An electric field built inside a crystal was proposed to enhance photoinduced carrier separation for improving photocatalytic property of semiconductor photocatalysts. However, a static built-in electric field can easily be saturated by the free carriers due to electrostatic screening, and the enhancement of photocatalysis, thus, is halted. To overcome this problem, here, we propose sonophotocatalysis based on a new hybrid photocatalyst, which combines ferroelectric nanocrystals (BaTiO3) and semiconductor nanoparticles (Ag2O) to form an Ag2O-BaTiO3 hybrid photocatalyst. Under periodic ultrasonic excitation, a spontaneous polarization potential of BaTiO3 nanocrystals in responding to ultrasonic wave can act as alternating built-in electric field to separate photoinduced carriers incessantly, which can significantly enhance the photocatalytic activity and cyclic performance of the Ag2O-BaTiO3 hybrid structure. The piezoelectric effect combined with photoelectric conversion realizes an ultrasonic-wave-driven piezophototronic process in the hybrid photocatalyst, which is the fundamental of sonophotocatalysis.
authors: †State Key Laboratory of Crystal Materials, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China.
authors: Haidong
authors: H
authors: Li
authors: †State Key Laboratory of Crystal Materials, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China.
authors: Yuanhua
authors: Y
authors: Sang
authors: †State Key Laboratory of Crystal Materials, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China.
authors: Sujie
authors: S
authors: Chang
authors: ‡Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100083, China.
authors: Xin
authors: X
authors: Huang
authors: ‡Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100083, China.
authors: Yan
authors: Y
authors: Zhang
authors: §Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455, United States.
authors: Rusen
authors: R
authors: Yang
authors: †State Key Laboratory of Crystal Materials, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China.
authors: Huaidong
authors: H
authors: Jiang
authors: †State Key Laboratory of Crystal Materials, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China.|‡Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100083, China.
authors: Hong
authors: H
authors: Liu
authors: ‡Beijing Institute of Nanoenergy and Nanosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100083, China.|∥School of Material Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0245, United States.
authors: Zhong Lin
authors: ZL
authors: Wang
keywords: built-in electric field; piezophototronics; sonophotocatalysis; ultrasonic wave