Photoelectrochemical water splitting performance of vertically aligned hematite nanoflakes deposited on FTO by a hydrothermal method

In this report, vertically aligned hematite nanoflakes were deposited on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) substrate by facile one step hydrothermal method for efficient photoelectrochemical water splitting. Further, the annealing effect on the PEC performance of alpha-Fe2O3 nanoflakes was studied. The alpha-Fe2O3 nanoflakes annealed at 300 degrees C yielded a high charge carrier density, lower flat band potential and enhanced photocurrent density of 2 mA/cm(2) at 2.2 V vs RHE, which is higher than that of as-deposited and annealed at 600 degrees C hematite nanoflakes. The enhancement in photocurrent density is mainly attributed to the improved crystalline quality, high surface roughness and existence oxygen vacancy upon annealing process. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.