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A multijunction of ZnIn2S4 nanosheet/TiO2 film/Si nanowire for significant performance enhancement of water splitting

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Abstract

Photoelectrodes with a specific structure and composition have been proposed for improving the efficiency of solar water splitting. Here, a novel multijunction structure was fabricated, with Si nanowires as cores, ZnIn2S4 nanosheets as branches, and TiO2 films as sandwiched layers. This junction exhibited a superior photoelectrochemical performance with a maximum photoconversion efficiency of 0.51%, which is 795 and 64 times higher than that of a bare Si wafer and nanowires, respectively. The large enhancement was attributed to the effective electron–hole separation and fast excited carrier transport within the multijunctions resulting from their favorable energy band alignments with water redox potentials, and to the enlarged contact area for facilitating the electron transfer at the multijunction/electrolyte interface.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Physics, Optoelectronics and Energy, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Thin Films, Soochow University, Suzhou, 215006, China

    Qiong Liu, Fangli Wu, Fengren Cao, Wei Tian & Liang Li

  2. Department of Electronics, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Photo-Electronic Thin Film Device and Technology, Nankai University, Tianjin, 370001, China

    Lei Chen, Xinjian Xie & Weichao Wang

Authors
  1. Qiong Liu
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  2. Fangli Wu
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  3. Fengren Cao
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  4. Lei Chen
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  5. Xinjian Xie
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  6. Weichao Wang
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  7. Wei Tian
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  8. Liang Li
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Correspondence to Wei Tian or Liang Li.

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Liu, Q., Wu, F., Cao, F. et al. A multijunction of ZnIn2S4 nanosheet/TiO2 film/Si nanowire for significant performance enhancement of water splitting. Nano Res. 8, 3524–3534 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-015-0852-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-015-0852-5

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