The effect of chemical etching by HF solution on the photoelectrochemical performance and photocatalytic activity of visible light-responsive TiO 2 (Vis-TiO 2 ) thin films prepared by a radio-frequency magnetron sputtering method has been investigated. It was found that VisTiO 2 thin films treated with HF solution (HF-Vis-TiO 2 ) exhibit a remarkable enhancement of the photoelectrochemical performance not only under UV but also visible light irradiation as compared to untreated Vis-TiO 2 . The incident photon to current conversion efficiencies reached 66 and 9.4% under UV (k = 360 nm) and visible light (k = 420 nm), respectively. The HF-Vis-TiO 2 thin films have a larger surface area and higher donor density than Vis-TiO 2 , indicating that the remarkable increase in the photocurrent may be due to the short diffusion length of the photoformed holes in reaching the solid-liquid interface as well as to the high conductivity. Moreover, the HF-Vis-TiO 2 thin films were found to act as efficient photocatalysts for the decomposition of water with the separate evolution of H 2 and O 2 from H 2 O under visible or sunlight irradiation.
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