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Construction of novel P-Si/TiO2/HfO2/MoS2/Pt heterophotocathode for enhanced photoelectrochemical water splitting

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Abstract

Photoelectrochemical devices have been developed to enable the conversion of solar energy. However, their commercial potential is restricted by the limited stability of the materials employed. To enhance the stability of photocathode and its solar water splitting performance, a P-Si/TiO2/HfO2/MoS2/Pt composite photocathode is developed in this work. The novel TiO2/HfO2/MoS2 serial nanostructure provides excellent stability of the photocathode, and optimizes the interface energy barrier to further facilitate the transfer process of photogenerated carriers within the photocathode. The best P-Si/TiO2/HfO2/MoS2/Pt photocathode demonstrates an initial potential of 0.5 V (vs. RHE) and a photocurrent density of −29 mA/cm2 at 0 V (vs. RHE). Through intensity modulated photocurrent spectroscopy and photoluminescence test, it is known that the enhanced water splitting performance is attributed to the optimized carrier transfer property. These findings provide a feasible strategy for the stability and photon quantum efficiency enhancement of silicon-based photocathode devices.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Key projects of intergovernmental international cooperation in key R & D programs of the Ministry of science and technology of China (No. 2021YFE0115800) and the National Science Funding Committee of China (No. U20A20250).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Lab of Synthetic and Natural Functional Molecule Chemistry of Ministry of Education, Shaanxi Key Laboratory for Carbon Neutral Technology, The College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Northwest University, Xi’an, 710069, China

    Jiaru Li, Jiayu Bai, Songjie Hu & Xiaohui Guo

  2. Key Lab of Wide Band-Gap Semiconductor Materials and Devices, School of Microelectronics, Xidian University, Xi’an, 710071, China

    Yuyu Bu

  3. Key Lab of Macromolecular Science of Shaanxi Province, Key Laboratory of Applied Surface and Colloid Chemistry, Ministry of Education, School of Chemistry & Chemical Engineering, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an, 710062, China

    Wenyu Yuan

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  1. Jiaru Li
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Correspondence to Yuyu Bu or Xiaohui Guo.

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Li, J., Bai, J., Hu, S. et al. Construction of novel P-Si/TiO2/HfO2/MoS2/Pt heterophotocathode for enhanced photoelectrochemical water splitting. Nano Res. 17, 4428–4436 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-023-6299-1

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