Structural analysis and optical properties of the Bi2−xYxWO6 system

Abstract

Photocatalytic conversion of solar energy into chemical energy has attracted considerable interest for several decades. One compound already reported as a visible-light-active photocatalyst for water splitting is BiYWO₆, a member of the Bi_2−xY_xWO₆ family of compounds. The structural and optical properties of other members of this family have not been reported to date. In this work, we synthesized various compositions of Bi_2−xY_xWO₆, studied their optical properties, and report their structural parameters obtained by utilizing powder diffraction coupled with Rietveld refinement.