Nanostructured WO 3 /BiVO 4 Photoanodes for Efficient Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting

Nanostructured photoanodes based on well‐separated and vertically oriented WO 3 nanorods capped with extremely thin BiVO 4 absorber layers are fabricated by the combination of Glancing Angle Deposition and normal physical sputtering techniques. The optimized WO 3 ‐NRs/BiVO 4 photoanode modified with...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Small (Weinheim an der Bergstrasse, Germany) Germany), 2014-09, Vol.10 (18), p.3692-3699
Main Authors: Pihosh, Yuriy, Turkevych, Ivan, Mawatari, Kazuma, Asai, Tomohiro, Hisatomi, Takashi, Uemura, Jin, Tosa, Masahiro, Shimamura, Kiyoshi, Kubota, Jun, Domen, Kazunari, Kitamori, Takehiko
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:Nanostructured photoanodes based on well‐separated and vertically oriented WO 3 nanorods capped with extremely thin BiVO 4 absorber layers are fabricated by the combination of Glancing Angle Deposition and normal physical sputtering techniques. The optimized WO 3 ‐NRs/BiVO 4 photoanode modified with Co‐Pi oxygen evolution co‐catalyst shows remarkably stable photocurrents of 3.2 and 5.1 mA/cm 2 at 1.23 V versus a reversible hydrogen electrode in a stable Na 2 SO 4 electrolyte under simulated solar light at the standard 1 Sun and concentrated 2 Suns illumination, respectively. The photocurrent enhancement is attributed to the faster charge separation in the electronically thin BiVO 4 layer and significantly reduced charge recombination. The enhanced light trapping in the nanostructured WO 3 ‐NRs/BiVO 4 photoanode effectively increases the optical thickness of the BiVO 4 layer and results in efficient absorption of the incident light.
ISSN:1613-6810
1613-6829
DOI:10.1002/smll.201400276