Laser ablation in air and its application in catalytic water splitting and Li-ion battery

Summary Pulse laser has been widely used in both fundamental science and practical technologies. In this perspective, we highlight the employment of pulse laser ablation in air (LAA) in energy related catalytic reactions. With LAA, samples are directly ablated in ambient air, which makes this technology facile to conduct. Materials can be modified by LAA in multiple aspects, such as morphology modulation, heterojunction fabrication, or defects engineering, which are desired features for energy related catalytic reactions. We begin this perspective with a brief introduction of this technology, including the mechanism, the experimental setup and the characteristic of laser ablated materials. The recent works utilizing LAA are then summarized to prove the promising prospects of LAA in the energy field. Finally, several opportunities about the future usage of LAA are proposed and discussed.