Facile fabrication of organic/inorganic nanotube heterojunction arrays for enhanced photoelectrochemical water splitting

• Published in: Nanoscale 2016-07, Vol.8 (27), p.13228-13235
• Main Authors: Chen, Yingzhi, Li, Aoxiang, Yue, Xiaoqi, Wang, Lu-Ning, Huang, Zheng-Hong, Kang, Feiyu, Volinsky, Alex A
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Architecture; Arrays; Durability; Emission spectroscopy; Heterojunctions; Nanostructure; Titanium dioxide; Water splitting
• ISSN: 2040-3364; 2040-3372
• DOI: 10.1039/c5nr07893h

Organic/inorganic heterojunction photoanodes are appealing for making concurrent use of the highly photoactive organic semiconductors, and the efficient dielectric screening provided by their inorganic counterparts. In the present work, organic/inorganic nanotube heterojunction arrays composed of TiO 2 nanotube arrays and a semiconducting N , N -(dicyclohexyl) perylene-3,4,9,10-tetracarboxylic diimide (PDi) layer were fabricated for photoelectrochemical water splitting. In this arrayed architecture, a PDi layer with a tunable thickness was coated on anodic TiO 2 nanotube arrays by physical vapor deposition, which is advantageous for the formation of a uniform layer and an adequate interface contact between PDi and TiO 2 . The obtained PDi/TiO 2 junction exhibited broadened visible light absorption, and an effective interface for enhanced photogenerated electron-hole separation, which is supported by the reduced charge transfer resistance and prolonged excitation lifetime via impedance spectroscopy analysis and fluorescence emission decay investigations. Consequently, such a heterojunction photoanode was photoresponsive to a wide visible light region of 400-600 nm, and thus demonstrated a highly enhanced photocurrent density at 1.23 V vs . a reversible hydrogen electrode. Additionally, the durability of such a photoanode can be guaranteed after long-time illumination because of the geometrical restraint imposed by the PDi aggregates. These results pave the way to discover new organic/inorganic assemblies for high-performance photoelectric applications and device integration. Heterojunctions composed of a semiconducting organic layer/inorganic nanotube array are facilely fabricated via the PVD method and demonstrate enhanced photoelectrochemical water splitting.