Investigation on TiO2 photocathodic protection based on lattice distortion and stress engineering

Anatase TiO2 has always been a research hotspot of photocathodic protection materials because of its high photocatalytic activity. However, improving the utilization rate of TiO2 to visible light and reducing the recombination rate of photoinduced carriers need to be resolved urgently. Here, TiO2 nanofilms photocathodic protection regulation mechanism was explored by coupling size-dependent lattice distortion and stress engineering in combination with the first-principles calculation and experiment. The results indicated that the uniaxial compression stress can effectively reduce the band gap of TiO2, which is conducive to the photocathodic protection of TiO2. Moreover, the low compression stress (Com'-TiO2) can significantly improve the photocathodic protection performance of TiO2 was confirmed experimentally. These findings provide a new idea for the regulation of TiO2 nanofilm's photocathodic protection performance.