Bimetallic vanadium-molybdenum nitrides using magnetron co-sputtering as alkaline hydrogen evolution catalyst

Developing advanced materials with high catalytic activity for electrocatalytic applications is of vital importance to mitigate the energy crisis. In this work, we for the first time report a novel method to prepare bimetallic vanadium-molybdenum nitride (MoVN) thin films by magnetron co-sputtering and further demonstrate their applications for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). When used as HER catalysts, the resulting MoVN thin film electrodes show superior electrocatalytic activity especially in alkaline electrolyte in contrast to bare VN and Mo2N, delivering a low overpotential of 108 mV to afford a current density of 10 mA cm(-2), a Tafel slope of 60 mV dec(-1), as well as excellent long-term durability. Most importantly, our study opens opportunities to explore new HER catalyst materials in the family of bimetallic transition metal nitrides.