Simple but Effective Way To Enhance Photoelectrochemical Solar-Water-Splitting Performance of ZnO Nanorod Arrays: Charge-Trapping Zn(OH) Annihilation and Oxygen Vacancy Generation by Vacuum Annealing.

This study presents an effective and the simplest method to substantially improve the photoelectrochemical water-splitting ability of hydrothermally grown ZnO nanorod arrays (NRAs). In the hydrothermal growth of ZnO NRAs, unwanted Zn(OH) species are formed, which act as trapping sites of photoexcited charges. We found that those inherent charge-trapping sites could be annihilated by the desorption of the hydroxyl groups upon vacuum annealing above 200 °C, which resulted in an enhancement of the charge-separation efficiency and photocurrent density. Another drastic increase in the photocurrent density occurred when ZnO NRAs were treated with annealing at higher temperature (700 °C), which can be attributed to the introduced oxygen vacancies acting as shallow donors in the ZnO crystal lattice. The removal of the charge-trapping Zn(OH) and the generation of oxygen vacancies were confirmed by photoluminescence (PL) and XPS analyses. The ZnO NRAs treated by this simple method yield a photocurrent density of 600 μA/cm at 1.23 V under 1 sun illumination, which is 20 times higher than that obtained from as-grown ZnO NRAs. This study presents a highly efficient way of increasing the bulk electric conductivity and photoelectrochemical activity of metal oxide nanorods without requiring the introduction of any extrinsic dopants.