Selective growth of Ag3PO4 submicro-cubes on Ag nanowires to fabricate necklace-like heterostructures for photocatalytic applications

Selective growth of Ag3PO4 submicro-cubes on Ag nanowires to construct necklace-like hetero-photocatalysts has been demonstrated. This novel hetero-structure exhibits much higher activities than both pure Ag3PO4 cubes and Ag nanowires for degradation of organic contaminants under visible light irradiation, which may be primarily ascribed to highly efficient charge separation at the contact interfaces as well as rapid electron export through Ag nanowires.