Strain Effect on The Photo-Catalytic Properties of SnO2

The urgent need to find alternative materials for Photocatalytic water splitting has been generated by the recently extensive attention received to this technology as a promising method to produce hydrogen. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations have been carried out in the present study in order to examine the electronic and photocatalytic properties of SnO2 under uniaxial strain. Our results show that under tensile strain the band gap energy decreases, while an opposite behavior is observed in the case of compression. In addition, enhanced absorption and charge carrier mobility under tensile strain reveal the ability of mechanical strain to modulate the band structure and the photocatalytic properties of SnO2 in order to improve its practical application as a photo-catalyst material.