Atomic Layer Deposition of Space-Efficient SnO2 Underlayers for BiVO4 Host-Guest Architectures for Photoassisted Water Splitting

Benjamin Lamm, Lite Zhou, Pratap Rao, Morgan Stefik

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

12 Scopus citations

Abstract

Bismuth vanadate (BiVO4 ) is promising for solar-assisted water splitting. The performance of BiVO4 is limited by charge separation for >70 nm films or by light harvesting for <700 nm films. To resolve this mismatch, host-guest architectures use thin film coatings on 3D scaffolds. Recombination, however, is exacerbated at the extended host-guest interface. Underlayers are used to limit this recombination with a host-underlayer-guest series. Such underlayers consume precious pore volume where typical SnO2 underlayers are optimized with 65-80 nm. In this study, conformal and ultrathin SnO2 underlayers with low defect density are produced by atomic layer deposition (ALD). This shifts the optimized thickness to just 8 nm with significantly improved space efficiency. The materials chemistry thus determines the dimension optimization. Lastly, host-guest architectures are shown to have an applied bias photon-to-charge efficiency of 0.71 %, a new record for a photoanode absorber prepared by ALD.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1916-1924
Number of pages9
JournalChemSusChem
Volume12
Issue number9
DOIs
StatePublished - May 8 2019
Externally publishedYes

Funding

B.L. and M.S. acknowledge support by the National Science Foundation (DMR-1752615). L.Z. and P.M.R. acknowledge support by the National Science Foundation (DMR-1609538). The authors would like to thank Binod Giri for assistance with Hall effect measurements.

Keywords

  • Bismuth vanadate
  • atomic layer deposition
  • host-guest
  • photoelectrochemistry
  • water splitting

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Atomic Layer Deposition of Space-Efficient SnO2 Underlayers for BiVO4 Host-Guest Architectures for Photoassisted Water Splitting'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this