Issue 41, 2020

Revealing the relationship between photoelectrochemical performance and interface hole trapping in CuBi2O4 heterojunction photoelectrodes

Abstract

p-Type CuBi2O4 is considered a promising metal oxide semiconductor for large-scale, economic solar water splitting due to the optimal band structure and low-cost fabrication. The main challenge in utilizing CuBi2O4 as a photoelectrode for water splitting, is that it must be protected from photo-corrosion in aqueous solutions, an inherent problem for Cu-based metal oxide photoelectrodes. In this work, several buffer layers (CdS, BiVO4, and Ga2O3) were tested between CuBi2O4 and conformal TiO2 as the protection layer. RuOx was used as the co-catalyst for hydrogen evolution. Factors that limit the photoelectrochemical performance of the CuBi2O4/TiO2/RuOx, CuBi2O4/CdS/TiO2/RuOx, CuBi2O4/BiVO4/TiO2/RuOx and CuBi2O4/Ga2O3/TiO2/RuOx heterojunction photoelectrodes were revealed by comparing photocurrents, band offsets, and directed charge transfer measured by modulated surface photovoltage spectroscopy. For CuBi2O4/Ga2O3/TiO2/RuOx photoelectrodes, barriers for charge transfer strongly limited the performance. In CuBi2O4/CdS/TiO2/RuOx, the absence of hole traps resulted in a relatively high photocurrent density and faradaic efficiency for hydrogen evolution despite the presence of pronounced deep defect states at the CuBi2O4/CdS interface. Hole trapping limited the performance moderately in CuBi2O4/BiVO4/TiO2/RuOx and strongly in CuBi2O4/TiO2/RuOx photoelectrodes. For the first time, our results show that hole trapping is a key factor that must be addressed to optimize the performance of CuBi2O4-based heterojunction photoelectrodes.

Graphical abstract: Revealing the relationship between photoelectrochemical performance and interface hole trapping in CuBi2O4 heterojunction photoelectrodes

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
30 May 2020
Accepted
12 Sep 2020
First published
14 Sep 2020
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY license

Chem. Sci., 2020,11, 11195-11204

Revealing the relationship between photoelectrochemical performance and interface hole trapping in CuBi2O4 heterojunction photoelectrodes

A. Song, I. Levine, R. van de Krol, T. Dittrich and S. P. Berglund, Chem. Sci., 2020, 11, 11195 DOI: 10.1039/D0SC03030A

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications without requesting further permissions from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given.

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