Selective Deposition of Silver Oxide on Single-Domain Ferroelectric Nanoplates and Their Efficient Visible-Light Photoactivity

In this work, single-crystal and single-domain PbTiO3 nanoplates are employed as substrates to prepare Ag2O/PbTiO3 composite materials through a photodeposition method. It is revealed that silver oxide nanocrystals with an average size of 63 nm are selectively deposited on the positive polar surface of the ferroelectric substrate. The possible mechanism leading to the formation of silver oxide is that silver ions are first reduced to silver and then oxidized by oxygen generation. The composite shows an efficient photo-degradation performance towards rhodamine B (RhB) and methyl orange (MO) under visible-light irradiation. Such highly efficient photoactivity can be attributed to the ferroelectric polarization effect of the substrate, which promotes the separation of photogenerated electrons and holes at the interface.