Elemental doping for optimizing photocatalysis in semiconductors

Abstract

The exploration of advanced photocatalysts has been attracting wide attention, especially in facing the recent growing challenges of energy and environment. Among the various strategies for achieving high solar energy utilization, elemental doping has been extensively explored owing to its advantages in tuning the electronic structures of semiconductor-based catalysts, where the key factors in photocatalysis can be generally optimized. This frontier article will focus on the impacts of elemental doping on light absorption, band positions and charge carrier processes of semiconductors.