title: Mechanism of photocatalytic activity improvement of AgNPs/TiO2by oxygen plasma irradiation.
abstract: Plasmonic metal Ag nanoparticles (AgNPs) on TiO2thin films (AgNPs/TiO2) are a kind of excellent photocatalyst of high efficiency under visible light, and thus draw great interest nowadays. Further improvement of their photocatalytic activity (PA) is difficult but is of high importance for their applications. In this paper, oxygen plasma was taken to partially oxidize AgNPs deposited on the surface of TiO2to form a structure with the configuration of a p-type semiconductor/plasmonic metal/n-type semiconductor (Ag2O/AgNPs/TiO2). The localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) of the AgNPs was strongly damped after oxygen plasma irradiation (OPI) but the photocatalytic activity was improved. The mechanisms of the photocatalytic activity improvement under UV and visible light were explored based on charge kinetics.
authors.affiliation: Department of Vacuum Science and Technology, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, 230009, China. ycfang@hfut.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Yingcui
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Fang
authors.affiliation: Department of Vacuum Science and Technology, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, 230009, China. ycfang@hfut.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Bing
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Vacuum Science and Technology, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, 230009, China. ycfang@hfut.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Liu
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Hong
authors.affiliation: Department of Vacuum Science and Technology, Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, 230009, China. ycfang@hfut.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Kang
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, iChEM (Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials), and School of Chemistry and Materials Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China. jiangj1@ustc.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Gongpu
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, iChEM (Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials), and School of Chemistry and Materials Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, China. jiangj1@ustc.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jiang
authors.affiliation: Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, 230031, China. jlch@ippc.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Rong
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Yan
authors.affiliation: Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hefei, 230031, China. jlch@ippc.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Junling
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chen