Affiliations 

  • 1 Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan. yhc@nctu.edu.tw
  • 2 School of Engineering, Monash University Malaysia, Bandar Sunway, Selangor, Malaysia
  • 3 Department of Physics, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan
  • 4 Electrophysics, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
  • 5 Department of Materials Science and Engineering, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan. yhc@nctu.edu.tw and Electrophysics, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan and Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
Nanoscale, 2016 Aug 25;8(34):15795-801.
PMID: 27533610 DOI: 10.1039/c6nr04997d

Abstract

Ferroelectric photoelectrodes, other than conventional semiconductors, are alternative photo-absorbers in the process of water splitting. However, the capture of photons and efficient transfer of photo-excited carriers remain as two critical issues in ferroelectric photoelectrodes. In this work, we overcome the aforementioned issues by decorating the ferroelectric BiFeO3 (BFO) surface with Au nanocrystals, and thus improving the photoelectrochemical (PEC) performance of BFO film. We demonstrate that the internal field induced by the spontaneous polarization of BFO can (1) tune the efficiency of the photo-excited carriers' separation and charge transfer characteristics in bare BFO photoelectrodes, and (2) modulate an extra optical absorption within the visible light region, created by the surface plasmon resonance excitation of Au nanocrystals to capture more photons in the Au/BFO heterostructure. This study provides key insights for understanding the tunable features of PEC performance, composed of the heterostructure of noble metals and ferroelectric materials.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.