High Efficiency Water Splitting on InGaN Nanowire Arrays under Ultraviolet and Visible Light Irradiation

Faqrul Chowdhury^a, Shizhao Fan^a, Zetian Mi^a, Md Kibria^a, Bandar AlOtaibi^a

^aMcGill University, Montreal (Canada), 3600 University Str., Montreal, 0, Canada

Proceedings of International Conference on New Advances in Materials Research for Solar Fuels Production (SolarFuel14)

Montréal, Canada, 2014 June 25th - 26th

Organizer: Thomas Hamann

Oral, Zetian Mi, presentation 029
Publication date: 16th April 2014

To date, success in finding abundant visible-light active photocatalyst for high efficiency solar fuel production has been very limited. Moreover, the stability of currently reported photocatalyst materials is largely limited by photocorrosion caused by self-oxidation. Different techniques have also been developed to transform the highly stable UV light responsive materials into visible light responsive photocatalyst, but with limited success. Recently, metal-nitrides have attracted considerable attention for applications in artificial photosynthesis, due to their extraordinary stability and tunable energy bandgap across nearly the entire solar spectrum. We have recently shown that one-dimensional (1D) GaN and InGaN nanowires possess suitable band alignment and potential for overall pure water splitting under UV, blue and green light (up to ~560 nm) irradiation, the longest wavelength ever reported. We have further developed multi-band InGaN/GaN nanowire heterostructures that can lead to highly stable, efficient hydrogen production from pure water splitting. The estimated absorbed photon conversion efficiency is ~13% at ~440-450 nm wavelength. It is also observed that the efficiency is directly related to the band bending in the near-surface region, which can significantly affect charge carrier transport to the photocatalyst-water interface. By tuning the surface charge properties through controlled dopant incorporation, we have demonstrated that the quantum efficiency of spontaneous water splitting can be drastically enhanced. Such InGaN/GaN nanowire arrays grown directly on low cost, large area Si substrates can also function as highly stable photoanode in acidic solution. Relatively high incident-photon-to-current-conversion efficiency (upto ~ 27%) is measured under ultraviolet and visible light irradiation. Detailed structural characterization has been performed on such nanowire arrays, further confirming that there is virtually no degradation after an extended period of photoelectrochemical reaction. This work provides a promising approach for achieving scalable and stable production of solar fuels by using non-oxide nanoscale photocatalyst wafers.

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