Single-Particle View of Doping-Controlled Charge Recombination in BiVO4.

Chemical doping of semiconductors has been widely used to alter and enhance the photochemistry of materials. More specifically, the nature of the doping element(s) influences the inherent electronic and structural properties of semiconductors. The morphology of the semiconductor particles can further impact the photocatalytic performance of the materials. We report here that solo- and codoping of truncated pyramidal BiVO4 with phosphorus and nitrogen affects the photoluminescence (PL) pattern and enhances the emission intensity, as observed using confocal fluorescence microscopy. The PL emission has been shown to increase with doping in P:BiVO4, N:BiVO4, and P:N:BiVO4 by 6.8%, 10.8%, and 19.2%, respectively, relative to that of BiVO4. Our subparticle analyses revealed a trend of corner edge > top edge > side edge. We demonstrated that codoping diminishes the sensitivity of PL to the particle volume, reducing the impact of structural heterogeneity in BiVO4.