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arXiv · 2012.05801

Different roles of Fe1-xNixOOH co-catalyst on hematite ({\alpha}-Fe2O3) photoanodes with different dopants

Anton Tsyganok·Dino Klotz·Kirtiman Deo Malviya·Avner Rothschild·Daniel A Grave
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Abstract

Transparent Fe1-xNixOOH overlayers (~2 nm thick) were deposited photoelectrochemically on (001) oriented heteroepitaxial Sn- and Zn-doped hematite (Fe2O3) thin film photoanodes. In both cases, the water photo-oxidation performance was improved by the co-catalyst overlayers. Intensity modulated photocurrent spectroscopy (IMPS) was applied to study the changes in the hole current and recombination current induced by the overlayers. For the Sn-doped hematite photoanode, the improvement in performance after deposition of the Fe1-xNixOOH overlayer was entirely due to reduction in the recombination current, leading to a cathodic shift in the onset potential. For the Zn-doped hematite photoanode, in addition to a reduction in recombination current, an increase in the hole current to the surface was also observed after the overlayer deposition, leading to a cathodic shift in the onset potential as well as an enhancement in the plateau photocurrent. These results demonstrate that Fe1-xNixOOH co-catalysts can play different roles depending on the underlying hematite photoanode. The effect of the co-catalyst is not always limited to changes in the surface properties, but also to an increase in hole current from the bulk to the surface that indicates a possible crosslink between surface and bulk processes.

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Anton Tsyganok, Dino Klotz, Kirtiman Deo Malviya, Avner Rothschild, Daniel A Grave. 2020-12-08. Different roles of Fe1-xNixOOH co-catalyst on hematite ({\alpha}-Fe2O3) photoanodes with different dopants. https://doi.org/10.1021/acscatal.7b04386

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