Photodegradation of methyl orange under visible light by micro-nano hierarchical Cu ₂O structure fabricated by hybrid laser processing and chemical dealloying

Micro-nano hierarchical structure on the substrate was fabricated by a hybrid approach including laser deposition, laser ablation and chemical dealloying. The structure consists of micro bumps with a width of 50 μm and a height of 100 μm, and nanoporous structures with a size of 70-150 nm on the micro bumps. XRD and XPS results confirm that these hierarchical structures were made of Cu ₂O. For use in comparison, three additional structures with feature size in milliscale, microscale, and nanoscale were also prepared respectively by the proposed methods. Under visible light, the micro-nano structure exhibited the best performance of photodegradation. It is the result of the large specific surface and the catalytic reaction driven by the cuprous oxides.