Surface Local Structure Dependence of Consumption Process of Photogenerated Holes on TiO2 Single Crystal Electrode in Aqueous Solution

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We investigated the surface local structure dependence of four competitive reactions (oxygen evolution reaction, photoluminescence (PL), surface roughening and non-radiative recombination) on TiO2 surface using atomically flat TiO2 (rutile) single crystal electrode those step-terrace structure was strictly controlled. It was revealed that the ratio of the quantum efficiency of four kinds of reactions strongly depends on the surface local structure such as step-terrace structure. On the other hand, it was revealed that the surface roughening process induced the change in the ratio of quantum efficiency of four kinds of competitive reactions, leading to the increase of the photocatalytic activity for oxygen photoevolution due to the generation of new surface sites where the activation energy for O2 evolution was relatively small.