Water splitting to form hydrogen and oxygen using solar energy in thepresence of  photocatalysts has long been studied as a potential means ofclean, large-scale fuel production. Despite the development of hundreds ofphotocatalyst in the past three decades, the AQE (Apparent Quantum Efficiency)of the photocatalysts is still quite low, far from the industruial application.The reasons arise from the fact that photocatalytic process is much morecomplicated than conventional catalytic process. To develop more activephotocatalysts, it is absolutely necessary to investigate the photocatalysismechanism including charge separation, electrons/holes transfer, and surfacereactions by both advanced characterization techniques and theoretical methods.Correlated AFM, vibrational spectroscopy as well as time-resolved spectrocpiyprovide the possibility to obtain the chemical information and photoelectricproperties on sub-micron level, which is within the important scale of aphotocatalysts. 

 

Our research area include: 

1)Characterization of individual photocatalyst byAFM, spectroscopic imaging technique and time resolved spectroscopy; arelationship between photoelectric properties and chemical features will bebuilt , providing a deep insight into the mechanism of a workingphotocatalyst. 

2)Assembly the model catalysts at single particle level bynanomanipulation and characterize its photoactivity via in situ probe. This mayprovid the strategy for the rational design of a photocatalysts with highphotocatalyticperphomance.

代表性文章：

1.  Directly Probing ChargeSeparation at Interface of TiO2 Phase Junction. J.Phys. Chem. Lett., 2017, 8,1419–1423

2.  Construction andNanoscale Detection of Interfacial Charge Transfer of Elegant Z-SchemeWO3/Au/In2S3 Nanowire Arrays ，NanoLett., 2016, 16,5547–5552

3.  Highly AnisotropicPhotogenerated Charge Separations on Different Facets of Single BiVO4Photocatalyst, Angew Chem, Int Ed. 2015, 54, 9111–9114

4.  UV Raman Spectroscopicstudy on the synthesis mechanism and assembly of molecular sieves, Chem. Soc.Rev., 2010, 39, 4794

5.  UV Raman spectroscopicstudies on active sites and synthesis mechanisms of transition metal-containingmicroporous and mesoporous materials, Acc. Chem. Res., 2010, 43, 378

6.  In Situ UV RamanSpectroscopic Study on the Synthesis Mechanism of AlPO-5, Angew. Chem., Int.Ed., 2009, 48, 8743 - 8747;