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High density Si/ZnO core/shell nanowire arrays for photoelectrochemical water splitting

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Abstract

Si/ZnO core/shell nanowire (NW) arrays were fabricated using atomic layer deposition of ZnO shell on n-Si NW arrays prepared by metal assisted electroless etching method. Scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction were utilized to characterize the core/shell structures. Water splitting performance of the core/shell structures was preliminarily studied. The Si/ZnO core/shell NW arrays yielded significantly higher photocurrent density than the planar Si/ZnO structure due to their low reflectance and high surface area. The photoelectrochemical efficiency was found to be 0.035 and 0.002 % for 10 μm-long Si/ZnO NW array and planar Si/ZnO sample, respectively. These results suggested that core/shell structure is superior to planar heterojunction for PEC electrode design. We demonstrated the dependence of photocurrent density on the length of the core/shell array, and analyzed the reasons why longer NW arrays could produce higher photocurrent density. The relationship between the thickness of ZnO shell and the photoconversion efficiency of Si/ZnO NW arrays was also discussed. By applying the core/shell structure in electrode design, one may be able to improve the photoelectrochemical efficiency and photovoltaic device performance.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the NSFC (Project No. 60777009), the Key Laboratory Projects of The Education Department of Liaoning Province (Project No. 20060131), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Project No. DUT11LK46), the Doctoral Project by the China Ministry of Education (Project No. 20070141038), and Open Fund by Laboratory for MEMS, Liaoning Province.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Physics and Optoelectronic Technology, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, 116024, People’s Republic of China

    Jiuyu Ji, Heqiu Zhang, Yu Qiu, Yingmin Luo & Lizhong Hu

  2. State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy, 457 Zhongshan Road, Dalian, 116023, People’s Republic of China

    Wenhua Zhang

  3. School of Physics and Electronic Technology, Liaoning Normal University, Dalian, 116029, People’s Republic of China

    Yan Wang

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  1. Jiuyu Ji
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  2. Wenhua Zhang
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  4. Yu Qiu
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  5. Yan Wang
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  7. Lizhong Hu
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Correspondence to Heqiu Zhang.

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Ji, J., Zhang, W., Zhang, H. et al. High density Si/ZnO core/shell nanowire arrays for photoelectrochemical water splitting. J Mater Sci: Mater Electron 24, 3474–3480 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-013-1272-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10854-013-1272-5

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