Magnetron Sputtering as a Solvent-Free Method for Fabrication of Nanoporous ZnO Thin Films for Highly Efficient Photocatalytic Organic Pollution Degradation

Zinc oxide (ZnO) is one of the most versatile semiconductor materials with many potential applications. Understanding the interactions between the surface chemistry of ZnO along with its physico-chemical properties are essential for the development of ZnO as a robust photocatalyst for the removal of aqueous pollutants. We report on the fabrication of nanoparticle-like porous ZnO films and the correlation between the fabrication process parameters, particle size, surface oxygen vacancies (SOV), photoluminescence and photocatalytic performance. The synthesis route is unique, as highly porous zinc layers with nanoscale grains were first grown via magnetron sputtering, a vacuum-based technique, and subsequently annealed at temperatures of 400 °C, 600 °C and 800 °C in oxygen flow to oxidise them to zinc oxide (ZnO) while maintaining their porosity. Our results show that as the annealing temperature increases, nanoparticle agglomeration increases, and thus there is a decrease in the active sites for the photocatalytic reaction. However, for selected samples the annealing leads to an increase of the photocatalytic efficiency, which we explain based on the analysis of defects in the material, based on photoluminescence (PL). PL analysis showed that in the material the transition between the conduction band and the oxygen vacancy is responsible for the green emission centered at 525 nm, but the photocatalytic activity correlated best with surface states—related emission.