Electronic properties of highly-active Ag3AsO4 photocatalyst and its band gap modulation: an insight from...

The electronic structures of highly active Ag-based oxide photocatalysts Ag3AsO4 and Ag3PO4 are studied by hybrid-density functional calculations. It is revealed that Ag3AsO4 and Ag3PO4 are indirect band gap semiconductors. The Hartree-Fock mixing parameters are fitted for experimental band gaps of Ag3AsO4 (1.88 eV) and Ag3PO4 (2.43 eV). The smaller electron effective mass and the lower valence band edge of Ag3AsO4 are likely to be responsible for the superior photocatalytic oxidation reaction to Ag3PO4. The comparable lattice constant and analogous crystal structure between the two materials allow the opportunities of fine-tuning the band gap of Ag3AsxP1-xO4 using a solid-solution approach. The development of Ag3AsxP1-xO4 should be promising for the discovery of novel visible-light sensitized photocatalysts.