Construction of teethlike homojunction BiOCl (001) nanosheets by selective etching and its high photocatalytic activity.

Teethlike homojunctions BiOCl (001) nanosheets with tunable photoresponse were constructed by selective etching with triethanolamine and allowed fast charge separation across the interfaces to facilitate photocatalysis. The unique microstructure exhibits a superior photocatalytic activity that can be ascribed to the combined interaction of the high UV/vis light harvest, high photogenerated charge separation efficiency, and the fast interfacial charge-transfer rate based on the unique homogeneous topotactic structure. We believe that the creation of this new model junction may be a great aid in the design and preparation of efficient semiconductor based photocatalysts and a new understanding of the essential relation between the junction and the photocatalytic activity.