Journal
ACS SUSTAINABLE CHEMISTRY & ENGINEERING
Volume 6, Issue 8, Pages 10364-10373Publisher
AMER CHEMICAL SOC
DOI: 10.1021/acssuschemeng.8b01715
Keywords
Cu2O; CuO; Photocathode; Electrodeposition; Electron transport
Categories
Funding
- National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant - Korea government (MSIT) [2018R1A2B2004050]
- Human Resources Program in Energy Technology of the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning (KETEP), from the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Energy, Republic of Korea [20174030201800]
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To effectively transport photogenerated charges within a cuprous oxide (Cu2O) photocathode and to transfer them to the electrolyte, cupric oxide (CuO) as a heterojunction material enable to provide the additional built-in electric field is perfectly suitable band position and can be produced from the original Cu2O films by simple oxidation process. However, their different crystal structures and lattice constants inevitably induce crystal distortions and the formation of a defective interface, resulting in the reduction of the photocurrent and photovoltage. To alleviate these intrinsic problems and improve its photoelectrochemical (PEC) performance, we fabricated a Cu2O/CuO interface with high crystallinity and a well-aligned atomic arrangement by preparing a Cu2O absorber underlying layer preferentially oriented with [111] direction and forming a thin CuO overlayer (20-30 nm) via oxidation process at precisely controlled reduced oxygen partial pressure. At 5 Torr, the resultant Cu2O double-layer structure exhibited smooth crystallographic phase transition boundary from cubic Cu2O to monoclinic CuO and well-aligned lattice fringes. This exhibited considerable improvement in photocurrent density (2.8 mA/cm(2) at 0 V vs RHE) and onset potential (0.83 V), compared with those of pristine Cu2O. Importantly, these enhancements were achieved without coating of photocatalytic materials on the photoelectrodes.
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