Xu Chenyang, Wang Hongxin, Guo Hongying, Liang Ke, Zhang Yuanming, Li Weicong, Chen Junze, Lee Jae Sung, Zhang Hemin
College of Materials Science and Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610065, China.
Engineering Research Center of Alternative Energy Materials & Devices, Ministry of Education, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610065, China.
Nat Commun. 2024 Nov 9;15(1):9712. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-53967-y.
Developing transparent and efficient photoanodes is a challenging but essential task in tandem photoelectrochemical cell for unassisted solar water splitting without an external bias. Here we report construction of p-n homojunction hematite photoanodes by hybrid microwave annealing-induced single antimony doping, which results in the gradually-increased valence states from the surface to the inside by the unique features of hybrid microwave annealing. The Sb-doped p-n homojunction hematite photoanode exhibits improved performance and displays a good transparency, achieving a stable photocurrent density of ~4.21 mA cm at 1.23 V under 100 mW cm solar irradiation, which is comparable to the reported state-of-the-art hematite photoanodes. More importantly, a parallel-connected stack of six photoanodes of transparent p-n homojunction records a near-theoretical photocurrent density of ~10 mA cm at 1.23 V under standard photoelectrochemical water splitting conditions, which serves as a useful reference for hematite photoanodes and promises its practical application for unbiased photoelectrochemical water splitting.
在无需外部偏压的无辅助太阳能水分解串联光电化学电池中，开发透明且高效的光阳极是一项具有挑战性但又至关重要的任务。在此，我们报道了通过混合微波退火诱导的单锑掺杂构建p-n同质结赤铁矿光阳极，混合微波退火的独特特性使从表面到内部的价态逐渐升高。掺锑的p-n同质结赤铁矿光阳极表现出改善的性能并具有良好的透明度，在100 mW/cm²太阳光照下于1.23 V时实现了约4.21 mA/cm²的稳定光电流密度，这与已报道的最先进的赤铁矿光阳极相当。更重要的是，在标准光电化学水分解条件下，由六个透明p-n同质结光阳极并联组成的堆叠在1.23 V时记录到了约10 mA/cm²的近理论光电流密度，这为赤铁矿光阳极提供了有用的参考，并有望将其实际应用于无偏压光电化学水分解。
