Journal
ACS APPLIED ENERGY MATERIALS
Volume 4, Issue 10, Pages 11574-11579Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/acsaem.1c02318
Keywords
silicon; epitaxial growth; dopant segregation; Schottky junction photocathodes; overall water splitting
Funding
- National Key R&D Program of China [2017YFE0196400]
- Chinese Academy of Sciences [GJHZ201938, QYZDJ-SSW-JSC032]
- NSFC [21975269, 52172107, 62075142]
- Beijing Natural Science Foundation [2181002]
- Youth Innovation Promotion Association of CAS [Y201926]
- Australian Research Council [DP200100159]
- Australian Research Council [DP200100159] Funding Source: Australian Research Council
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The study presents a high-efficiency NiSi2/p-Si photocathode with a high-quality epitaxial interface and high photovoltage, exhibiting excellent performance in PEC water splitting, offering a promising route for large-scale hydrogen production from water.
Si-based Schottky junction photoelectrodes have shown promising potential for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting. One of the most challenging tasks to construct Si-based Schottky junction photoelectrodes with high efficiency is to obtain a high-quality metal/Si interface, which could reduce the interface defect density, increase the Schottky barrier height (SBH), and enable highly efficient charge transport. The epitaxial interface has been recognized as a nearly perfect electrical interface for the Sibased Schottky junction photoelectrodes. Here, we report the NiSi2/p-Si photocathode with a high-quality epitaxial interface, which is free of a disordered native SiO2 layer and has a low defect density. The dopant segregation strategy was utilized to introduce electrical dipoles at the NiSi2/p-Si interface, thereby increasing the SBH up to as high as 0.93 eV to obtain a high photovoltage. This epitaxial NiSi2/p-Si photocathode with Pt nanoparticles as hydrogen evolution reaction catalysts exhibited an excellent PEC performance with a high applied-bias photon-to-current efficiency of 5.2%. Furthermore, a full Si-based Schottky junction device was constructed by combining the epitaxial NiSi2/p-Si photocathode with a NiSi/n-Si photoanode to realize the overall water splitting under a low bias, illuminating a promising route for large-scale production of hydrogen from water.
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