Polaron-assisted nonadiabatic dynamics in protonated TiO_(2) with surface water molecule

We investigated the polaron-assisted nonadiabatic dynamics in protonated TiO_(2),as well as the polaron-H_(2)O coupling and its effects on the relaxation of photogenerated electrons.We observed that different polaron hopping regimes result in varied nonadiabatic couplings and relaxations of excited electrons from the conduction band minimum to the gap states of protonated TiO_(2),with a weak dependence on the actual trapping site of the polaron.Surface-adsorbed H_(2)O molecules can attract polarons toward the adsorbed Ti sites,with the coupling between H_(2)O and the polaron being inversely proportional to their distance.Our findings suggest that the lifetime of the photogenerated charge carriers can be extended by reducing the polaron-H_(2)O distances,with expected benefits to the efficiency of the reduced TiO 2 samples for photocatalytic applications.