Acceleration of Photoresponsive Wettability Conversion on TiO₂ Thin Films by Electrical Polarization Using Schottky Junction and Photovoltaic Cells

Abstract

This paper presents a method for accelerating photo-induced wettability conversion on TiO₂ thin films by combination of ultraviolet (UV) light irradiation and electrically polarization. We focused on the behavior of photogenerated holes in wettability conversion. The amount of hole at the vicinity of TiO₂ surface was attempted to increase by electrical polarization in order to assist wettability conversion. Acceleration of hydrophobilization was successfully demonstrated under dark by positive self-bias electric field in TiO₂ thin films which was induced by Pt/TiO₂ Schottky junction, and hydrophilization was also accelerated by negative bias electric field in TiO₂ thin films which was applied by Se/TiO₂ photovoltaic cells under light irradiation.