Hydrogen plasma favored modification of anatase TiO$_2$ (001) surface with desirable water splitting performance

Abstract

We show that when TiO$_2$ anatase (001) is exposed to hydrogen plasma that the pristine surface termination becomes unfavorable to another, slightly modified, surface. On this modified surface the topmost TiO$_2$ layer is intact but out of registry with the bottom layers. Nevertheless, the modified surface has significantly improved ability to split water under exposure to sunlight. We show by explicit calculation of the water splitting reaction that the energy barrier that exists on a pristine surface is not present on the modified surface. The valence band maximum of the surface is raised relative to the pristine surface, which is a favorable way of adjusting the band gap in TiO$_2$ to the solar spectrum.