Both localized surface plasmon resonance (SPR) effect in noble metal nanostructures and piezotronic effect in piezoelectric semiconductors have been proven to be effective in improving photocatalytic performance. In this work, we report a novel heterostructured piezo-photocatalyst by decorating plasmonic Au nanoparticles (AuNPs) on piezoelectric AgNbO₃ nanocubes. The optimized Au/AgNbO₃ nanocomposites exhibit significantly enhanced photocatalytic activities toward hydrogen evolution reaction from water (392 μmol g⁻¹ h⁻¹) and degradation of organic pollutants (first-order rate constant of 0.054 min⁻¹ for RhB) assisted by ultrasonic mechanical vibration (110 W, 40 kHz), which are about 2.2- and 5.7-times that of under only light irradiation, respectively. The considerably promoted photocatalytic activity can be attributed to a synergetic coupling of SPR and piezotronic effect, by which energetic hot electrons generated on the plasmonic AuNPs can be effective extracted onto AgNbO₃ driven by mechanical vibration induced piezo-potential near the heterojunction. This work undoubtedly demonstrates that the integration of SPR and piezotronic effects holds great promise to improve the photocatalytic efficiencies.

贵金属纳米结构中的局部表面等离子体共振（SPR）效应和压电半导体中的压电效应均已被证明可有效提高光催化性能。在这项工作中，我们通过在压电 AgNbO ₃纳米立方体上装饰等离子金纳米粒子 (AuNPs) 报告了一种新型异质结构压电光催化剂。优化的Au/AgNbO ₃纳米复合材料对水的析氢反应（392 μmol g ^-1 h ^-1）和有机污染物的降解（一级速率常数为0.054 min ^{-1 ）表现出显着增强的光催化活性}对于RhB）由超声机械振动（110 W，40 kHz）辅助，分别是仅在光照射下的2.2倍和5.7倍。显着提高的光催化活性可归因于 SPR 和压电效应的协同耦合，通过这种耦合，在等离子 AuNPs 上产生的高能热电子可以有效地提取到由异质结附近的机械振动诱导的压电势驱动的AgNbO _3上。这项工作无疑表明，SPR 和压电效应的整合对于提高光催化效率具有很大的前景。