Bandgap engineering of SrTiO3/NaTaO3 heterojunction for visible light photocatalysis

Hybrid density functional of HSE06 has been adopted to investigate the geometry and electronic properties of SrTiO₃/NaTaO₃ heterostructures in contrast with the cubic SrTiO₃ and cubic NaTaO₃. The SrTiO₃/NaTaO₃ heterostructures with varied monolayers of SrTiO₃ and NaTaO₃ units are constructed, and all the heterojunction systems have the smaller bandgaps as compared with those of pure SrTiO₃ and NaTaO₃. For the (SrTiO₃)_m/(NaTaO₃)_n (m + n = 10) systems, the bandgap decreases in the order of m = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, while the bandgap increases in the order of m = 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. We also investigate the (SrTiO₃)_m/(NaTaO₃)_m systems (m = 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7), and the calculated results suggest that the (SrTiO₃)₆/(NaTaO₃)₆ system has the smallest bandgap of 2.58 eV in our considered systems. This study indicates the development of SrTiO₃/NaTaO₃ heterojunction is a promising way to improve the photocatalytic activities of SrTiO₃ and NaTaO₃.