Double-sided plasmonic Au nanoparticles on Cu-doped ZnO/ZnO heterostructures with enhanced photocatalytic activity

We demonstrate the synthesis of heterostructured photocatalysts that the double-sided plasmonic Au nanoparticles have been deposited on the Cu-doped ZnO/ZnO heterostructures by a facile ion sputtering method. The resultant quaternary Cu-doped ZnO/Au/ZnO/Au heterostructures exhibit excellent photocatalytic activity in the photodegradation of rhodamine 6G under 10W UV light irradiation, which is much higher than Cu-doped ZnO/ZnO heterostructures. Moreover, the Cu-doped ZnO/Au/ZnO/Au heterostructures can be reused for degradation of R6G during a five-cycle experiment without significant decrease in the photocatalytic efficiency. (c) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.