Nanocrystal Engineering of Sputter-Grown CuO Photocathode for Visible-Light-Driven Electrochemical Water Splitting

Cupric oxide (CuO) thin film was sputtered onto fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) coated glass substrate and incorporated into a photoelectrochemical (PEC) cell as a photocathode. Through in situ nanocrystal engineering, sputtered CuO film shows an improvement in its stability and photocurrent generati...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:ACS applied materials & interfaces 2016-01, Vol.8 (2), p.1206-1213
Main Authors: Masudy-Panah, Saeid, Siavash Moakhar, Roozbeh, Chua, Chin Sheng, Tan, Hui Ru, Wong, Ten It, Chi, Dongzhi, Dalapati, Goutam Kumar
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:Cupric oxide (CuO) thin film was sputtered onto fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) coated glass substrate and incorporated into a photoelectrochemical (PEC) cell as a photocathode. Through in situ nanocrystal engineering, sputtered CuO film shows an improvement in its stability and photocurrent generation capability. For the same CuO film thickness (150 nm), films deposited at a sputtering power of 300 W exhibit a photocurrent of ∼0.92 mAcm–2 (0 V vs RHE), which is significantly higher than those deposited at 30 W (∼0.58 mAcm–2). By increasing the film thickness to 500 nm, the photocurrent is further enhanced to 2.5 mAcm–2, which represents a photocurrent conversion efficiency of 3.1%. Systematic characterization using Raman, XRD, and HR-TEM reveals that the high sputtering power results in an improvement in CuO film crystallinity, which enhances its charge transport property and, hence, its photocurrent generation capabilities.
ISSN:1944-8244
1944-8252
DOI:10.1021/acsami.5b09613