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Nano Research 2015, 8(11): 3524-3534 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-015-0852-5
Research Article | Issue | Published: 17 September 2015

A multijunction of ZnIn2S4 nanosheet/TiO2 film/Si nanowire for significant performance enhancement of water splitting

Show Author's Information Qiong Liu1,  Fangli Wu1,  Fengren Cao1,  Lei Chen2,  Xinjian Xie2,  Weichao Wang2,  Wei Tian1( ),  Liang Li1( )
College of PhysicsOptoelectronics and EnergyJiangsu Key Laboratory of Thin FilmsSoochow UniversitySuzhou215006China
Department of ElectronicsTianjin Key Laboratory of Photo-Electronic Thin Film Device and TechnologyNankai UniversityTianjin370001China
Keywords:
atomic layer deposition, nanosheets, water splitting, photoelectrochemical cells, multijunction
Cite this article:
Liu Q, Wu F, Cao F, et al. A multijunction of ZnIn2S4 nanosheet/TiO2 film/Si nanowire for significant performance enhancement of water splitting. Nano Research, 2015, 8(11): 3524-3534. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12274-015-0852-5
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Abstract Full text Electronic supplementary material About this article

Photoelectrodes with a specific structure and composition have been proposed for improving the efficiency of solar water splitting. Here, a novel multijunction structure was fabricated, with Si nanowires as cores, ZnIn2S4 nanosheets as branches, and TiO2 films as sandwiched layers. This junction exhibited a superior photoelectrochemical performance with a maximum photoconversion efficiency of 0.51%, which is 795 and 64 times higher than that of a bare Si wafer and nanowires, respectively. The large enhancement was attributed to the effective electron–hole separation and fast excited carrier transport within the multijunctions resulting from their favorable energy band alignments with water redox potentials, and to the enlarged contact area for facilitating the electron transfer at the multijunction/electrolyte interface.


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Electronic supplementary material
About this article

A multijunction of ZnIn2S4 nanosheet/TiO2 film/Si nanowire for significant performance enhancement of water splitting

Show Author's information Qiong Liu1, Fangli Wu1, Fengren Cao1, Lei Chen2, Xinjian Xie2, Weichao Wang2, Wei Tian1( ), Liang Li1( )
College of PhysicsOptoelectronics and EnergyJiangsu Key Laboratory of Thin FilmsSoochow UniversitySuzhou215006China
Department of ElectronicsTianjin Key Laboratory of Photo-Electronic Thin Film Device and TechnologyNankai UniversityTianjin370001China

Abstract

Photoelectrodes with a specific structure and composition have been proposed for improving the efficiency of solar water splitting. Here, a novel multijunction structure was fabricated, with Si nanowires as cores, ZnIn2S4 nanosheets as branches, and TiO2 films as sandwiched layers. This junction exhibited a superior photoelectrochemical performance with a maximum photoconversion efficiency of 0.51%, which is 795 and 64 times higher than that of a bare Si wafer and nanowires, respectively. The large enhancement was attributed to the effective electron–hole separation and fast excited carrier transport within the multijunctions resulting from their favorable energy band alignments with water redox potentials, and to the enlarged contact area for facilitating the electron transfer at the multijunction/electrolyte interface.

Keywords: atomic layer deposition, nanosheets, water splitting, photoelectrochemical cells, multijunction

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Publication history
Copyright
Acknowledgements

Publication history

Received: 24 April 2015
Revised: 25 June 2015
Accepted: 02 July 2015
Published: 17 September 2015
Issue date: November 2015

Copyright

© Tsinghua University Press and Springer‐Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 51422206 and 51372159), 1000 Talents Plan for Young Researchers, "Shuangchuang" Program of Jiangsu Province, a Project Supported by Jiangsu Science and Technology Committee for Distinguished Young Scholars (No. BK20140009), the National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program) (No. 2015CB358600) and a Project Funded by the Priority Academic Program Development of Jiangsu Higher Education Institutions (PAPD). We also acknowledge Jiangsu Nata Opto- electronic Materials Co. Ltd. for providing high purity TDMAT precursor for deposition of TiO2 thin films.

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