Oxygen-Induced Bi-Self-Doped BiVO with a p-n Homojunction Toward Promoting the Photocatalytic Performance.

Bi-self-doped BiVO (Bi-BVO) nanotubes with p-n homojunctions are fabricated via an oxygen-induced strategy. Calcinating the as-spun fibers with abundant oxygen plays a pivotal role in achieving Bi self-doping. Density functional theory calculations and experimental results indicate that Bi self-doping can narrow the band gap of BiVO, which contributes to enhancing light harvesting. Moreover, Bi self-doping endows BiVO with n- and p-type semiconductor characteristics simultaneously, resulting in the construction of p-n homojunctions for retarding rapid electron-hole recombination. Benefiting from these favorable properties, Bi-BVO exhibits a superior photocatalytic performance in contrast to that of pristine BiVO. Furthermore, this is the first report describing the achievement of p-n homojunctions through self-doping, which gives full play to the advantages of self-doping.