Inverse Opal Photonic Crystals as a Strategy to Improve Photocatalysis: Underexplored Questions

CURTI M.; SCHNEIDER J.; BAHNEMANN D.; MENDIVE C.

THE JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY LETTERS

AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY

Lugar: Washington DC; Año: 2015 vol. 6 p. 3903 - 3910

1948-7185

The structuring of materials in the form of photonic crystals for photocatalytic applications is a quite new strategy aiming to enhance the performance of the photocatalysts at wavelength ranges where their absorption is poor. It is of particular interest a successful manufacture of an efficient photocatalytic system which could make use of the sunlight. Thus, the key of the strategy is the slow photon effect, occurring at the edges of a forbidden band for photons. In this Perspective we have chosen some questions that we consider of relevance to well worth addressing theoretically and experimentally, and may therefore lead to a more productive use of inverse opals as photonic photocatalytic materials.