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Modification of TiO_2 Nanoparticles with Organodiboron Molecules Inducing Stable Surface Ti^(3+) Complex

Abstract

As one of the most promising semiconductor oxide materials, titanium dioxide (TiO_2) absorbs ultraviolet (UV) light but not visible light. To address this limitation, the introduction of Ti^(3+) defects represents a common strategy to render TiO_2 visible-light-responsive. Unfortunately, current hurdles in Ti^(3+) generation technologies impeded the widespread application of Ti^(3+) modified materials. Herein, we demonstrate a simple and mechanistically distinct approach to generating abundant surface-Ti^(3+) sites without leaving behind oxygen vacancy and sacrificing one-off electron donors. In particular, upon adsorption of organodiboron reagents onto TiO_2 nanoparticles, spontaneous electron injection from the dibron-bound O^(2-) site to adjacent Ti^(4+) site leads to an extremely stable blue surface Ti^(3+)‒O^(-•) complex. Notably, this defect generation protocol is also applicable to other semiconductor oxides including ZnO, SnO_2, Nb_2O_5 and In_2O_3. Furthermore, the as-prepared photoelectronic device using this strategy affords 10^3 fold higher visible light response, and the fabricated perovskite solar cell shows an enhanced performance

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