Linklater, D. P., Haydous, F., Xi, C., Pergolesi, D., Hu, J., Ivanova, E. P., … Juodkazytė, J. (2020). Black-Si as a photoelectrode. Nanomaterials, 10(5), 873 (13 pp.). https://doi.org/10.3390/nano10050873
The fabrication and characterization of photoanodes based on black-Si (b-Si) are presented using a photoelectrochemical cell in NaOH solution. B-Si was fabricated by maskless dry plasma etching and was conformally coated by tens-of-nm of TiO2 using atomic layer deposition (ALD) with a top layer of CoOx cocatalyst deposited by pulsed laser deposition (PLD). Low reflectivity R < 5% of b-Si over the entire visible and near-IR (λ < 2 µm) spectral range was favorable for the better absorption of light, while an increased surface area facilitated larger current densities. The photoelectrochemical performance of the heterostructured b-Si photoanode is discussed in terms of the n-n junction between b-Si and TiO2.
