Photocatalytic and Photoelectronic Properties of Anatase TiO2 Modified by Cu Ions Plasma and Its Theoretic Study by the First Principle Study

摘要

Highly ordered anatase titania nanotube arrays (TiNT) were fabricated by anodic oxidation. SEM analysis method was used to characterize the morphology of the prepared samples. TiNT samples doped with Cu ions were prepared by home-made Metal Vapor Vacuum Arc ions sources (MEVVA, BNU, China) implanter. Photo-electric response and methyl orange decomposition ability of implanted samples under UV and visible light were tested, and the results indicated that the performance of Cu/TiNT enhanced significantly under visible light; it was noteworthy that the photocurrent density of A-Cu/TiNT was 0.102 mA/cm^2, which was 115 times that of pure TiNT, and degradation ability of TiNT also strongly enhanced under visible light. In a word, the absorption spectrum of implanted anatase titania shifted to a longer wavelength region. Theoretic study on Cu-doped anatase based on density functional theory was carried out in this paper to validate the experiment results. The calculation results are depicted as follows: Intermittent energy band appeared around the Fermi energy after doping with Cu metal, the width of which was 0.35 eV and the location of valence and conduction bands shifted to the lower energy level by 0.22 eV; more excitation and jump routes were opened for the electrons. The narrowed band gaps allowed the photons with lower energy (at longer wavelength, such as visible light) to be absorbed, which accorded well with the experimental results.