Ultra-Narrow Depletion Layers in a Hematite Mesocrystal-Based Photoanode for Boosting Multihole Water Oxidation

Significant charge recombination that is difficult to suppress limits the practical applications of hematite (alpha-Fe2O3) for photoelectrochemical water splitting. In this study, Ti-modified hematite mesocrystal superstructures assembled from highly oriented tiny nanoparticle (NP) subunits with sizes of ca. 5 nm were developed to achieve the highest photocurrent density (4.3 mA cm(-2) at 1.23 V vs. RHE) ever reported for hematite-based photoanodes under back illumination. Owing to rich interfacial oxygen vacancies yielding an exceedingly high carrier density of 4.1x10(21) cm(-3) for super bulk conductivity in the electrode and a large proportion of ultra-narrow depletion layers (<1 nm) inside the mesoporous film for significantly improved hole collection efficiency, a boosting of multihole water oxidation with very low activation energy (E-a=44 meV) was realized.