Gold nanoparticles decorated on BaTiO3as photocatalyst: effect of SPR and ferroelectricity

BaTiO3(BTO) powders with cubic(C) and tetragonal(T) crystalline structures were prepared by sol-gel method followed by calcination at different temperatures, and they were decorated with gold nanoparticles(AuNPs) to form Au-T-BTO and Au-C-BTO respectively. All the samples (C-BTO, T-BTO, Au-C-BTO and Au-T-BTO) were used as photo-catalysts for the degradation of Rhodamine B (RhB). Au-T-BTO exhibits the highest photocatalytic activity due to thecombined effect of surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and the ferroelectricity of the tetragonalphase BTO. The light absorption peaks at 500 to 600 nm verify the presence of SPR effect from Au NPs. Based on density functional theory (DFC) within the generalized gradient approximation (GGA) approach, it was demonstrated that the tetragonal phase BaTiO3 shows a spontaneous polarization with the calculated value of 0.34 C m−2, which is absent in thecubic phase. The internal space charge layer in tetragonal phase BTO enhances the separation of photoexcited carriers due to the spontaneous ferroelectric polarization, which also benefits photocatalytic activities.