Surface Density-of-States Engineering of Anatase TiO by Small Polyols for Enhanced Visible-Light Photocurrent Generation.

Enhancement of visible-light photocurrent generation by sol-gel anatase TiO films was achieved by binding small polyol molecules to the TiO surface. Binding ethylene glycol onto the surface, enhancement factors up to 2.8 were found in visible-light photocurrent generation experiments.

Facet-Dependent Diol-Induced Density of States of Anatase TiO Crystal Surface.

Owing to their fundamental importance and practical applications, anatase TiO crystals with well-defined {001} and {101} facets attracted intensive research interests. In this study, we systematically investigated solvent dependence of the photoreaction of the different coexposed crystal facets during noble metal photodeposition. By examining the deposition position in each solvent, we revealed that solvents play a pivotal role on the facet selectivity.

Plasmon-Mediated Surface Engineering of Silver Nanowires for Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering.

We reveal nanoscale morphological changes on the surface of a silver nanowire (AgNW) in the conventional surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) measurement condition. The surface morphology changes are due to the surface plasmon-mediated photochemical etching of silver in the presence of certain Raman probes, resulting in a dramatic increase of Raman scattering intensity. This observation indicates that the measured SERS enhancement does not always originate from the as-designed/fabricated structures themselves, but sometimes with contribution from the morphological changes by plasmon-mediated photochemical reactions.