Nitrogen ion irradiation effect on enhancing photocatalytic performance of CdTe/ZnO heterostructures

Effect of nitrogen ion irradiation treatment to the enhancement of ZnO photocatalytic performance

“…According to the results, N ion irradiation has been found to result in a decrease in the effective bandgap energy with the increase of the ion doses, from the as‐grown ZnO (3.16 eV) to dose of 5 × 10 14 cm −2 (3.12 eV), 1 × 10 15 cm −2 (3.09 eV), and 5 × 10 15 cm −2 (2.85 eV). By introducing oxygen vacancy defects, N ion irradiation could make great contributions to narrowing the effective optical bandgap . The effect of N ion irradiation on the photocatalytic performance of ZnO nanowires can be summarized as below.…”

“…TiO 2 anatase X‐ray diffraction peaks disappear after ion implantation, and only Ti reflexes can be detected, while the anatase peaks become apparent again upon thermal annealing at 450°C. Further study of ion irradiation still needs to be concentrated on the effect of different energies, optimization between dose and energy, and their detailed mechanism …”

Effects of 300 keV N+ Ion Irradiation on Radio-Frequency Sputtered Al-ZnO Thin Films for a Low Energy Regime

“…The decrement in the bandgap after irradiation indicates that N ion irradiation causes this narrowing by generating oxygen vacancy defects in the lattice structure of AZO thin films. This effect can be further used for improvement in the photocatalytic performance of the devices, as studied by Yazi WANG et al 31 The influence of N ion irradiation on the photocatalytic performance could be the results of increased oxygen vacancy defects that obstruct the recombination of the photo-excited electrons and holes.…”

Ion-irradiation of catalyst and electrode materials for water electrolysis/photoelectrolysis cells, rechargeable batteries, and supercapacitors

“…Heterojunction semiconductor is also an important sort of material in photocatalysis. In Wang's work, 109 introducing defects into materials to improve performance. Using ion-irradiation technology to control the evolution of defects in electrodes is an effective method to improve battery performance.…”

“…The heterojunction semiconductor is also an important sort of material in photocatalysis. In a work by Wang, 109 ZnO NWs were coupled with a narrow bandgap semiconductor material CdTe through a series of aqueous chemical reactions and were further irradiated with different doses of N ions to enhance the photocatalytic activity. They investigated the intensity of PL peaks at various cycles of CdTe/ZnO heterostructures, and it was found that the ZnO–CdTe-20-cycle heterostructures exhibit a lower PL peak intensity than that of other cycles ZnO–CdTe, which indicates the lowest recombination rate of photo-generated carriers.…”