title: Giant Electron-Hole Interactions in Confined Layered Structures for Molecular Oxygen Activation.
abstract: Numerous efforts have been devoted to understanding the excitation processes of photocatalysts, whereas the potential Coulomb interactions between photogenerated electrons and holes have been long ignored. Once these interactions are considered, excitonic effects will arise that undoubtedly influence the sunlight-driven catalytic processes. Herein, by taking bismuth oxyhalide as examples, we proposed that giant electron-hole interactions would be expected in confined layered structures, and excitons would be the dominating photoexcited species. Photocatalytic molecular oxygen activation tests were performed as a proof of concept, where singlet oxygen generation via energy transfer process was brightened. Further experiments verify that structural confinement is curial to the giant excitonic effects, where the involved catalytic process could be readily regulated via facet-engineering, thus enabling diverse reactive oxygen species generation. This study not only provides an excitonic prospective on photocatalytic processes, but also paves a new approach for pursuing systems with giant electron-hole interactions.
authors.affiliation: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at the Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, University of Science and Technology of China , Hefei, Anhui 230026, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at the Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, University of Science and Technology of China , Hefei, Anhui 230026, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Shichuan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at the Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, University of Science and Technology of China , Hefei, Anhui 230026, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Dingyu
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Yong
authors.affiliation: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at the Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, University of Science and Technology of China , Hefei, Anhui 230026, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Xiaodong
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-8288-035X
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at the Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, University of Science and Technology of China , Hefei, Anhui 230026, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Shuang
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at the Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, University of Science and Technology of China , Hefei, Anhui 230026, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Shao
authors.affiliation: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at the Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, University of Science and Technology of China , Hefei, Anhui 230026, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Xianshun
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at the Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, University of Science and Technology of China , Hefei, Anhui 230026, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Bicai
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Pan
authors.affiliation: Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Science at the Microscale, Collaborative Innovation Center of Chemistry for Energy Materials, University of Science and Technology of China , Hefei, Anhui 230026, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yi
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-1416-5557
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Xie