Photo-driven Oxygen Vacancies Extends Charge Carrier Lifetime for Efficient Solar Water Splitting

A photocharge/discharge strategy is proposed to initiate the WO3 photoelectrode and suppress the main charge recombination, which remarkably improves the photoelectrochemical (PEC) performance. The photocharged WO3 surrounded by a 8-10 nm overlayer and oxygen vacancies could be operated more than 25 cycles with 50 h durability without significant decay on PEC activity. A photocharged WO3/CuO photoanode exhibits an outstanding photocurrent of 3.2 mA cm(-2) at 1.23 V-RHE with a low onset potential of 0.6 V-RHE, which is one of the best performances of p-n heterojunction structure. Using nonadiabatic molecular dynamics combined with time-domain DFT, we clarify the prolonged charge carrier lifetime of photocharged WO3, as well as how electronic systems of photocharged WO3/CuO semiconductors enable the effective photoinduced electrons transfer from WO3 into CuO. This work provides a feasible route to address excessive defects existed in photoelectrodes without causing extra recombination.

Automated summary

A photocharge/discharge strategy significantly improves the performance of the WO3 photoelectrode while maintaining its stability. Additionally, the study shows that the photocharged WO3/CuO heterojunction structure enables effective photoinduced electron transfer.