Journal
ACS APPLIED MATERIALS & INTERFACES
Volume 13, Issue 44, Pages 52912-52920Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/acsami.1c14865
Keywords
photoelectrochemical water splitting; Si photoanode; two-dimensional nanomaterials; cocatalyst; ionic layer epitaxy
Funding
- Natural Science Foundation of Beijing Municipality [2214075]
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [2021JBM019]
- U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences (BES) [DE-SC0020283]
- U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) [DE-SC0020283] Funding Source: U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
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By coupling optically transparent, mesoporous ultrathin In2O3 nanosheets on the top of Si nanowire arrays and introducing a TiO2 thin film as an intermediate protective layer, the photoelectrochemical water splitting performance has been significantly improved.
Vertical Si nanowire (NW) arrays are a promising photoanode material in the photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting field because of their highly efficient light absorption capability and large surface areas for PEC reactions. However, Si NW arrays always suffer from high overpotential, low photocurrent density, and low applied bias photon-to-current efficiency (ABPE) due to their low surface catalytic activity and intense charge recombination. Here, we report an efficient oxygen evolution cocatalyst of optically transparent, mesoporous ultrathin (2.47 nm thick) In2O3 nanosheets, which are coupled on the top of Si NW arrays. Combined with a conformal TiO2 thin film as an intermediate protective layer, this Si NW/TiO2/In2O3 (2.47 nm) heterostructured photoanode exhibited an extremely low onset potential of 0.6 V vs reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE). The Si NW/TiO2/In2O3 (2.47 nm) photoanode also showed a high photocurrent density of 27 mA cm(-2) at 1.23 V vs RHE, more than 1 order of magnitude higher than that of the Si NW/TiO2 photoanodes. This improvement in solar water splitting performance was attributed to the significantly promoted charge injection efficiency as a result of the In2O3 nanosheet coupling. This work presents a promising pathway for developing efficient Si-based photoanodes by coupling ultrathin 2D cocatalysts.
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