Liao Ting-Wei, Verbruggen Sammy W, Claes Nathalie, Yadav Anupam, Grandjean Didier, Bals Sara, Lievens Peter
Laboratory of Solid-State Physics and Magnetism, KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200D, Box 2414, BE-3001 Leuven, Belgium.
Sustainable Energy, Air & Water Technology (DuEL), University of Antwerp, Groenenborgerlaan 171, BE-2020 Antwerp, Belgium.
Nanomaterials (Basel). 2018 Jan 8;8(1):30. doi: 10.3390/nano8010030.
In this study, we applied cluster beam deposition (CBD) as a new approach for fabricating efficient plasmon-based photocatalytic materials. Au nanoclusters (AuNCs) produced in the gas phase were deposited on TiO₂ P25-coated silicon wafers with coverage ranging from 2 to 8 atomic monolayer (ML) equivalents. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) images of the AuNCs modified TiO₂ P25 films show that the surface is uniformly covered by the AuNCs that remain isolated at low coverage (2 ML, 4 ML) and aggregate at higher coverage (8 ML). A clear relationship between AuNCs coverage and photocatalytic activity towards stearic acid photo-oxidation was measured, both under ultraviolet and green light illumination. TiO₂ P25 covered with 4 ML AuNCs showed the best stearic acid photo-oxidation performance under green light illumination (Formal Quantum Efficiency 1.6 × 10 over a period of 93 h). These results demonstrate the large potential of gas-phase AuNCs beam deposition technology for the fabrication of visible light active plasmonic photocatalysts.
在本研究中，我们应用簇束沉积（CBD）作为一种制备高效等离子体基光催化材料的新方法。在气相中产生的金纳米团簇（AuNCs）沉积在涂有TiO₂ P25的硅片上，覆盖范围为2至8个原子单层（ML）当量。AuNCs修饰的TiO₂ P25薄膜的扫描电子显微镜（SEM）图像显示，表面被AuNCs均匀覆盖，在低覆盖率（2 ML，4 ML）下保持孤立，在高覆盖率（8 ML）下聚集。在紫外光和绿光照射下，均测量了AuNCs覆盖率与硬脂酸光氧化光催化活性之间的明确关系。覆盖有4 ML AuNCs的TiO₂ P25在绿光照射下表现出最佳的硬脂酸光氧化性能（在93小时内的形式量子效率为1.6×10）。这些结果证明了气相AuNCs束沉积技术在制备可见光活性等离子体光催化剂方面的巨大潜力。
