Direct Imaging of Highly Anisotropic Photogenerated Charge Separations on Different Facets of a Single BiVO4 Photocatalyst

Jian Zhu; Fengtao Fan; Ruotian Chen; Hongyu An; Zhaochi Feng; Can Li

doi:10.1002/anie.201504135

Direct Imaging of Highly Anisotropic Photogenerated Charge Separations on Different Facets of a Single BiVO4 Photocatalyst

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2015 Jul 27;54(31):9111-4. doi: 10.1002/anie.201504135. Epub 2015 Jul 3.

Authors

Jian Zhu^{1

2}, Fengtao Fan¹, Ruotian Chen^{1

2}, Hongyu An^{1

2}, Zhaochi Feng¹, Can Li³

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, iChEM, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy, Zhongshan Road 457, Dalian 116023 (China).
² Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049 (China Department).
³ State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, iChEM, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy, Zhongshan Road 457, Dalian 116023 (China). canli@dicp.ac.cn.

PMID: 26147488
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201504135

Abstract

Spatially resolved surface photovoltage spectroscopy (SRSPS) was employed to obtain direct evidence for highly anisotropic photogenerated charge separation on different facets of a single BiVO4 photocatalyst. Through the controlled synthesis of a single crystal with preferentially exposed {010} facets, highly anisotropic photogenerated hole transfer to the {011} facet of single BiVO4 crystals was observed. The surface photovoltage signal intensity on the {011} facet was 70 times stronger than that on the {010} facets. The influence of the built-in electric field in the space charge region of different facets on the anisotropic photoinduced charge transfer in a single semiconductor crystal is revealed.

Keywords: charge carrier injection; charge separation; crystal engineering; imaging; photocatalysis.