Investigation on the photophysical processes in nanosized photocatalytic thin films using planar solid-state devices

The photophysical processes for three nanosized photocatalytic oxides, titanium dioxide (TiO₂) thin film, tin dioxide (SnO₂) thin film, and layered TiO₂/SnO₂ thin film, have been examined in planar solid-state devices. It is found that, for SnO₂ thin film, the dissociation of the photogenerated excitons can take place both on the film surface and inside the film, while for TiO₂ thin film, almost all excitons dissociate on the film surface. Such a difference is proposed to account for the higher photocatalytic activity of TiO₂ over SnO₂, since it is experimentally shown that the excitons dissociate in SnO₂ thin film as efficiently as they do in TiO₂ thin film. For layered TiO₂/SnO₂ thin film, when it is illuminated by a beam of UV light, it is suggested that there exists a local electrostatic field at the SnO₂ side of the interface, mainly formed by those holes efficiently photogenerated and then localized in SnO₂ thin film. The photo-induced local electrostatic field is believed to facilitate hole–electron separation on TiO₂ thin film and therefore increase the photocatalytic activity of the layered thin film over single TiO₂ thin film.