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Vertically Aligned CdO-Decked α-Fe₂O₃ Nanorod Arrays by a Radio Frequency Sputtering Method for Enhanced Photocatalytic Applications.

ABSTRACT: Green hydrogen production is one of the most desirable sustainable goals of the United Nations. Thus, for that purpose, we developed hematite (α-Fe₂O₃), an n-type semiconductor, a desirable candidate for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting, enabling hydrogen evolution. High recombination losses, low efficiency, and large-scale production hinder its potential. To address these issues, we have fabricated optimized bare and cadmium oxide (CdO)-decorated hematite thin film nanorod arrays using a throughput radio frequency (RF) sputtering with efficient water splitting behavior. To the best of our knowledge, no work has been done so far on the synthesis of CdO/α-Fe₂O₃ via RF sputtering for PEC application. Bare α-Fe₂O₃ samples, with a morphology of vertically aligned nanorods, were fabricated with optimized parameters such as as-deposited 70 nm of Fe, an angle of deposition of 70°, and an annealing temperature of 600 °C, which showed a photocurrent density of 0.38 mA/cm² at 1.65 V vs reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE). Characterizations depicted that this unique morphology with high crystallinity directly enhanced the performance of hematite photoanodes. Further, deposition of 30 nm of cadmium (CdO) on the α-Fe₂O₃ nanorods produced a corn-like morphology with CdO nanoparticles (∼2 nm), resulting in 4-times enhancement of the PEC performance (1.2 mA/cm² at 1.65 V vs RHE). CdO acted as a co-catalyst, responsible for satisfactory suppression of recombination and facilitating the hole transfer, directly enhancing the overall photocurrent density. This photoanode showed an extremely stable behavior over a period of 26 h when kept under constant illumination. Furthermore, the CdO-modified photoanode showed a better dye degradation (98% in 40 min) than the bare hematite (60% in 40 min), proving to be an efficient photoanode.

SUBMITTER: Alhabradi M

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9386802 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Vertically Aligned CdO-Decked α-Fe2O3 Nanorod Arrays by a Radio Frequency Sputtering Method for Enhanced Photocatalytic Applications.

Alhabradi Mansour M Nundy Srijita S Ghosh Aritra A Tahir Asif Ali AA

ACS omega 20220803 32

Green hydrogen production is one of the most desirable sustainable goals of the United Nations. Thus, for that purpose, we developed hematite (α-Fe2O3), an n-type semiconductor, a desirable candidate for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting, enabling hydrogen evolution. High recombination losses, low efficiency, and large-scale production hinder its potential. To address these issues, we have fabricated optimized bare and cadmium oxide (CdO)-decorated hematite thin fi ...[more]

PMID: 35990474

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Project description:Convex cylindrical silicon nanostructures, also referred to as silicon nanocones, find their value in many applications ranging from photovoltaics to nanofluidics, nanophotonics, and nanoelectronic applications. To fabricate silicon nanocones, both bottom-up and top-down methods can be used. The top-down method presented in this work relies on pre-shaping of silicon nanowires by ion beam etching followed by self-limited thermal oxidation. The combination of pre-shaping and oxidation obtains high-density, high aspect ratio, periodic, and vertically aligned sharp single-crystalline silicon nanocones at the wafer-scale. The homogeneity of the presented nanocones is unprecedented and may give rise to applications where numerical modeling and experiments are combined without assumptions about morphology of the nanocone. The silicon nanocones are organized in a square periodic lattice, with 250 nm pitch giving arrays containing 1.6 billion structures per square centimeter. The nanocone arrays were several mm2 in size and located centimeters apart across a 100-mm-diameter single-crystalline silicon (100) substrate. For single nanocones, tip radii of curvature < 3 nm were measured. The silicon nanocones were vertically aligned, baring a height variation of < 5 nm (< 1%) for seven adjacent nanocones, whereas the height inhomogeneity is < 80 nm (< 16%) across the full wafer scale. The height inhomogeneity can be explained by inhomogeneity present in the radii of the initial columnar polymer mask. The presented method might also be applicable to silicon micro- and nanowires derived through other top-down or bottom-up methods because of the combination of ion beam etching pre-shaping and thermal oxidation sharpening. A novel method is presented where argon ion beam etching and thermal oxidation sharpening are combined to tailor a high-density single-crystalline silicon nanowire array into a vertically aligned single-crystalline silicon nanocones array with < 3 nm apex radius of curvature tips, at the wafer scale.

Dataset Information

Vertically Aligned CdO-Decked α-Fe₂O₃ Nanorod Arrays by a Radio Frequency Sputtering Method for Enhanced Photocatalytic Applications.

Publications

Vertically Aligned CdO-Decked α-Fe<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub> Nanorod Arrays by a Radio Frequency Sputtering Method for Enhanced Photocatalytic Applications.

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