Issue 5, 2018

Highly-ordered silicon nanowire arrays for photoelectrochemical hydrogen evolution: an investigation on the effect of wire diameter, length and inter-wire spacing

Abstract

Vertically-aligned, highly-ordered silicon nanowire (SiNW) array photocathodes are fabricated employing e-beam lithography followed by deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) of Si. The effect of structural parameters of SiNWs, including wire diameter, length and inter-wire spacing, on their photoelectrocatalytic hydrogen evolution performance has been systematically investigated. Within the range of dimensions under study, the SiNW photocathode with a wire diameter of 200 nm, a length of 1 μm and an inter-wire spacing of 175 nm shows the best performance exhibiting a maximal saturated photocurrent density of 52 mA cm−2 and an onset potential (@−1 mA cm−2) of −0.17 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode. These lithography-patterned SiNWs with homogeneous structural parameters can help establish an unobscured structure–activity relation and facilitate Si-based photoelectrode design.

Graphical abstract: Highly-ordered silicon nanowire arrays for photoelectrochemical hydrogen evolution: an investigation on the effect of wire diameter, length and inter-wire spacing

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
08 Dec 2017
Accepted
07 Mar 2018
First published
08 Mar 2018

Sustainable Energy Fuels, 2018,2, 978-982

Highly-ordered silicon nanowire arrays for photoelectrochemical hydrogen evolution: an investigation on the effect of wire diameter, length and inter-wire spacing

S. M. Thalluri, J. Borme, D. Xiong, J. Xu, W. Li, I. Amorim, P. Alpuim, J. Gaspar, H. Fonseca, L. Qiao and L. Liu, Sustainable Energy Fuels, 2018, 2, 978 DOI: 10.1039/C7SE00591A

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