SCIENCE@home

Structural, optical, and XPS studies of doped yttria for superior water splitting under visible light illumination

I. N. Reddy,C. Reddy,Migyung Cho,Dongseob Kim,J. Shim

Published 2019 in Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry

ABSTRACT

Abstract Recently, there has been much research on developing highly efficient semiconductor photoelectrodes for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting applications. In this study, we synthesized and investigated Cu-doped Y2O3 photoelectrodes for this application using the hydrothermal method. The effects of Cu (0.0, 0.1, 0.3, and 0.5 mol) concentration on the crystal structure, morphology, and optical properties and their impact as photoelectrodes for energy-harvesting applications have been systematically explored. XPS analysis confirmed the incorporation of Cu ions into the host Y2O3 photoelectrodes. The optical band gap of Y2O3 photoelectrodes considerably decreases from ~4.35 eV to ~2.67 eV as a function of the Cu concentration, and the lowest bandgap was obtained for 0.3 mol% Cu-doped Y2O3 electrodes. Electrochemical impedance spectroscopy analysis confirmed that the Cu dopant enhanced the charge carrier density of Y2O3 and that it acts as an electron donor. PEC studies of Y2O3 revealed that the photoanodes with 0.3 mol% of Cu dopant exhibited the highest photocurrent density of ~7.5 × 10−5 A/cm2, which is ~15-fold that of pure Y2O3 (5.0 × 10−6 A/cm2). The superior photocurrent density is attributed to the improved electron donor density, the significantly reduced particle size, and the electron–hole recombination rate, which improved because of the Cu doping.

PUBLICATION RECORD

CITATION MAP

EXTRACTION MAP

CLAIMS

  • No claims are published for this paper.

CONCEPTS

  • No concepts are published for this paper.

REFERENCES

Showing 1-59 of 59 references · Page 1 of 1

CITED BY

Showing 1-23 of 23 citing papers · Page 1 of 1