Photocatalytic water splitting represents a promising way to produce renewable hydrogen fuel from solar energy. Ultrathin semiconductor electrodes for water splitting are of particular interest because the optical absorption occurs in the region where photogenerated charge carriers can effectively contribute to the chemical reactions on the surface. It is therefore important to manipulate and c...

Fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) is widely used as a substrate in the synthesis of a photo-reactive semiconductor electrode for solar water splitting. The hematite film on the surface of the FTO substrate annealed at 700 °C showed an enhanced photocurrent value with a maximum photocurrent of 0.39 mA cm(-2) at 1.23 V vs. RHE under 1 sun illumination. This is a much enhanced photocurrent value of t...

n-Type bismuth vanadate has been identified as one of the most promising photoanodes for use in a water-splitting photoelectrochemical cell. The major limitation of BiVO4 is its relatively wide bandgap (∼2.5 eV), which fundamentally limits its solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency. Here we show that annealing nanoporous bismuth vanadate electrodes at 350 °C under nitrogen flow can result in n...

Integrating natural and artificial photosynthetic platforms is an important approach to developing solar-driven hybrid systems with exceptional function over the individual components. A natural-artificial photosynthetic hybrid platform is formed by wiring photosystem II (PSII) and a platinum-decorated silicon photoelectrochemical (PEC) cell in a tandem manner based on a photocatalytic-PEC Z-sc...