TY - JOUR
T1 - Cu2O Nanowire Photocathodes for Efficient and Durable Solar Water Splitting
AU - Luo, Jingshan
AU - Steier, Ludmilla
AU - Son, Min Kyu
AU - Schreier, Marcel
AU - Mayer, Matthew T.
AU - Grätzel, Michael
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank Xiaoyun Yu, Dr. Néstor Guijarro and Prof. Kevin Sivula for for the Raman, PL measurements and the discussions. This work is supported by the following financial sources: EPFL Fellowship (awarded to J.L.) cofunded by Marie Curie from the European Union''s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development and demonstration (no. 291771); the PECDEMO project cofunded by Europe''s Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU) (no. 621252); the Nano-Tera NTF project (TANDEM); the PHOCS project supported under the Future and Emerging Technologies programme of the European Commission (no. 309223); the PECHouse project funded by the Swiss Federal Office for Energy.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 American Chemical Society.
PY - 2016/3/9
Y1 - 2016/3/9
N2 - Due to its abundance, scalability, and nontoxicity, Cu2O has attracted extensive attention toward solar energy conversion, and it is the best performing metal oxide material. Until now, the high efficiency devices are all planar in structure, and their photocurrent densities still fall well below the theoretical value of 14.5 mA cm-2 due to the incompatible light absorption and charge carrier diffusion lengths. Nanowire structures have been considered as a rational and promising approach to solve this issue, but due to various challenges, performance improvements through the use of nanowires have rarely been achieved. In this work, we develop a new synthetic method to grow Cu2O nanowire arrays on conductive fluorine-doped tin oxide substrates with well-controlled phase and excellent electronic and photonic properties. Also, we introduce an innovative blocking layer strategy to enable high performance. Further, through material engineering by combining a conformal nanoscale p-n junction, durable protective overlayer, and uniform catalyst decoration, we have successfully fabricated Cu2O nanowire array photocathodes for hydrogen generation from solar water splitting delivering unprecedentedly high photocurrent densities of 10 mA cm-2 and stable operation beyond 50 h, establishing a new benchmark for metal oxide based photoelectrodes.
AB - Due to its abundance, scalability, and nontoxicity, Cu2O has attracted extensive attention toward solar energy conversion, and it is the best performing metal oxide material. Until now, the high efficiency devices are all planar in structure, and their photocurrent densities still fall well below the theoretical value of 14.5 mA cm-2 due to the incompatible light absorption and charge carrier diffusion lengths. Nanowire structures have been considered as a rational and promising approach to solve this issue, but due to various challenges, performance improvements through the use of nanowires have rarely been achieved. In this work, we develop a new synthetic method to grow Cu2O nanowire arrays on conductive fluorine-doped tin oxide substrates with well-controlled phase and excellent electronic and photonic properties. Also, we introduce an innovative blocking layer strategy to enable high performance. Further, through material engineering by combining a conformal nanoscale p-n junction, durable protective overlayer, and uniform catalyst decoration, we have successfully fabricated Cu2O nanowire array photocathodes for hydrogen generation from solar water splitting delivering unprecedentedly high photocurrent densities of 10 mA cm-2 and stable operation beyond 50 h, establishing a new benchmark for metal oxide based photoelectrodes.
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U2 - 10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b04929
DO - 10.1021/acs.nanolett.5b04929
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84960486352
VL - 16
SP - 1848
EP - 1857
JO - Nano Letters
JF - Nano Letters
SN - 1530-6984
IS - 3
ER -