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Title: Highly Localized Charge Transfer Excitons in Metal Oxide Semiconductors

Journal Article · · Nano Letters

The ability to observe charge localization in photocatalytic materials on the ultrafast time scale promises to reveal important correlations between excited state electronic structure and photochemical energy conversion. Of particular interest is the ability to determine hole localization in the hybridized valence band of transition metal oxide semiconductors. Using femtosecond extreme ultraviolet reflection absorption (XUV-RA) spectroscopy we directly observe the formation of photoexcited electrons and holes in Fe2O3, Co3O4, and NiO occurring within the 100 fs instrument response. In each material, holes localize to the O 2p valence band states as probed at the O L1-edge, while electrons localize to metal 3d conduction band states on this same time scale as probed at the metal M2,3-edge. Chemical shifts at the O L1-edge enable unambiguous comparison of metal–oxygen (M–O) bond covalency. In conclusion, pump flux dependent measurements show that the exciton radius is on the order of a single M–O bond length, revealing a highly localized nature of exciton in each metal oxide studied.

Research Organization:
The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES). Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences Division
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0014051
OSTI ID:
1594151
Journal Information:
Nano Letters, Vol. 18, Issue 2; ISSN 1530-6984
Publisher:
American Chemical SocietyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 45 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (6)

Three applications of ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy of semiconductor thin films: spectroelectrochemistry, microscopy, and identification of thermal contributions journal January 2018
Effect of Doping and Excitation Wavelength on Charge Carrier Dynamics in Hematite by Time‐Resolved Microwave and Terahertz Photoconductivity journal May 2019
Identifying the acceptor state in NiO hole collection layers: direct observation of exciton dissociation and interfacial hole transfer across a Fe 2 O 3 /NiO heterojunction journal January 2018
Elucidating ultrafast electron dynamics at surfaces using extreme ultraviolet (XUV) reflection–absorption spectroscopy journal January 2018
In situ observation of picosecond polaron self-localisation in α-Fe2O3 photoelectrochemical cells journal September 2019
On the linear geometry of lanthanide hydroxide (Ln-OH, Ln = La–Lu) journal January 2019