Hydrothermal growth of highly oriented single crystalline Ta2O5 nanorod arrays and their conversion to Ta3N5 for efficient solar driven water splitting

Abstract

We grow vertically aligned single crystalline Ta₂O₅ nanorod arrays that can be converted to Ta₃N₅ nanorod arrays by nitridation. Combined with cobalt phosphate (Co-Pi) as a co-catalyst, such Ta₃N₅ nanorod photoanodes can yield photocurrent densities of ∼3.6 mA cm⁻² at 1.23 V_RHE and ∼8.2 mA cm⁻² at 1.59 V_RHE under AM 1.5G (100 mW cm⁻²) irradiation.