Tantalum Nitride-Enabled Solar Water Splitting with Efficiency Above 10%

Designing photoanode semiconducting materials with visible-light absorption and minimal charge-carrier recombination for achieving efficient solar-to-hydrogen (STH) conversion is challenging. Here, hybrid Ta3N5 nanorods and thin films are developed on transparent GaN/Al2O3 substrates. A Ta3N5 photoanode with a loaded cocatalyst achieves the best current density, i.e. 10.8 mA cm(-2), at 1.23 V versus the reversible hydrogen electrode under simulated AM 1.5G solar illumination. In a tandem configuration with dual-CuInSe2 photovoltaic cells, this semi-transparent photoanode achieves a reproducible STH energy conversion efficiency of & AP;12% (the highest among photocatalytic materials), and remains at more than 10% for 6.7 h of tandem device operation. Detailed transient absorption spectroscopy and theoretical analysis indicates that this high performance originates from efficient light absorption and hole utilization inside the Ta3N5 material. The results show the feasibility of suppressing dominant optical and charge-carrier- recombination losses by using nanostructured visible-light-absorbing materials for practical STH conversion.

Automated summary

Designing photoanode semiconducting materials with visible-light absorption and minimal charge-carrier recombination for achieving efficient solar-to-hydrogen (STH) conversion is challenging. Hybrid Ta3N5 nanorods and thin films are developed on transparent GaN/Al2O3 substrates to overcome these challenges and achieve high-performance STH energy conversion.