American Chemical Society, Journal of the American Chemical Society, 8(137), p. 2975-2983, 2015
DOI: 10.1021/ja512047k
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Defects are critically important for metal oxides in chemical and physical applications. Compared with the often stud-ied oxygen vacancies, engineering metal vacancies in n-type undoped metal oxides is still a great challenge, and the effect of metal vacancies on the physiochemical properties is seldom reported. Here, using anatase TiO2, the most im-portant and widely studied semiconductor, we demonstrate that metal vacancies (VTi) can be introduced in undoped oxides easily, and the presence of VTi results in many novel physiochemical properties. Anatase Ti0.905O2 was synthesized using solvothermal treatment of tetrabutyl titanate in ethanol-glycerol mixture and then thermal calcination. Experi-mental measurements and DFT calculations on cell lattice parameters show the un-stoichiometry is caused by the presence of VTi rather than oxygen interstitials. The presence of VTi changes the charge density and valence band edge of TiO2, and an un-reported strong EPR signal at g=1.998 presents under room temperature. Contrary to normal n-type and non-ferromagnetic TiO2, Ti-defected TiO2 shows inherent p-type conductivity with high charge mobility, and room-temperature ferromagnetism stronger than Co-doped TiO2 nanocrystalline. Moreover, Ti-defected TiO2 shows much better photocatalytic performance than normal TiO2 in H2 generation (4.4-fold) and organics degradation (7.0-fold for phenol), owing to the more efficient charge separation and transfer in bulk and at semiconductor/electrolyte interface. Metal-defected undoped oxides represent a unique material; this work demonstrates the possibility to fabri-cate such material in easy and reliable way and thus provides new opportunities for multifunctional materials in chem-ical and physical devices.