Publication date: 15th December 2014
Fuel synthesis requires the contribution of electrons which can be obtained directly from the use a renewable source of electricity, such as solar energy. Furthermore, the energy provided by photons can contribute to store energy from the sun by improving the energy balance of this process at large scale and, hence, reducing world global warming. Among many of the proposed electrode materials, silicon has the advantage of being an earth-abundant element and an efficient photovoltaic material, although, like many other proposed semiconductor, has limited durability due to the corrosion. In this contribution, we report corrosion-resistant photocathodes prepared on the base of processed N+P silicon structures and adequately protected with highly uniform layers obtained by atomic layer deposited (ALD) of different thicknesses and also coated with an optically transmitting layer of a known catalyst. Atomic layer deposition is a technique that has the ability to conformally and uniformly coat high aspect ratio materials which gives us the possibility to use planar or nanowire based approaches. Both approaches will be discussed. The desirable electrochemical efficiency and corrosion resistance of these cathodes is made possible by the selected thickness giving low electron-tunnelling resistance and uniform thickness of atomic-layer deposited TiO2. Related mechanisms and use of catalytic additives will be discussed.The fabricated electrodes have high photocurrent density levels of several tens of mA/cm2. Moreover they show also an excellent photo potential under AM 1.5 illumination conditions. These photocathode performances are adequate for achieving free bias solar water splitting device using BiVO4 photo anodes or other appropriate alternative metal oxides. Furthermore, it corroborates that high efficiencies can be achieved with very small degradation. Samples were tested during different accumulated time intervals with zero losing performance at all after more than 5h. These results are promising and corroborate that properly processed overlayers may have the potential to be stable for the long time frames that will be necessary for commercial PEC devices for low cost solar hydrogen production.
nanoGe is a prestigious brand of successful science conferences that are developed along the year in different areas of the world since 2009. Our worldwide conferences cover cutting-edge materials topics like perovskite solar cells, photovoltaics, optoelectronics, solar fuel conversion, surface science, catalysis and two-dimensional materials, among many others.
Previously nanoGe Spring Meeting (NSM) and nanoGe Fall Meeting (NFM), MATSUS is a multiple symposia conference focused on a broad set of topics of advanced materials preparation, their fundamental properties, and their applications, in fields such as renewable energy, photovoltaics, lighting, semiconductor quantum dots, 2-D materials synthesis, charge carriers dynamics, microscopy and spectroscopy semiconductors fundamentals, etc.
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics
International Conference on Hybrid and Organic Photovoltaics (HOPV) is celebrated yearly in May. The main topics are the development, function and modeling of materials and devices for hybrid and organic solar cells. The field is now dominated by perovskite solar cells but also other hybrid technologies, as organic solar cells, quantum dot solar cells, and dye-sensitized solar cells and their integration into devices for photoelectrochemical solar fuel production.
Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics
The main topics of the Asia-Pacific International Conference on Perovskite, Organic Photovoltaics and Optoelectronics (IPEROP) are discussed every year in Asia-Pacific for gathering the recent advances in the fields of material preparation, modeling and fabrication of perovskite and hybrid and organic materials. Photovoltaic devices are analyzed from fundamental physics and materials properties to a broad set of applications. The conference also covers the developments of perovskite optoelectronics, including light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.
The International Conference on Perovskite Thin Film Photovoltaics Perovskite Photonics and Optoelectronics (NIPHO) is the best place to hear the latest developments in perovskite solar cells as well as on recent advances in the fields of perovskite light-emitting diodes, lasers, optical devices, nanophotonics, nonlinear optical properties, colloidal nanostructures, photophysics and light-matter coupling.