A nanograin α-Fe2O3 thin-film
photoanode
with Bi dopant was successfully synthesized with a simple electrodeposition
method on indium tin oxide (ITO) glass and annealing at 550 °C
for 3 h. The thin-film photoanodes were characterized and evaluated
for their capabilities in oxidizing water. Incorporating Bi dopant
into the photoanode could cathodically shift the onset potential to
0.43 V at 0.6 mA/cm2 under a 150 W solar light illumination.
Interestingly, the incident photon-to-electron (IPCE) and applied
bias photon-to-current efficiency (ABPE) could achieve 22.2 and 0.63%,
respectively. On the basis of the experimental data, the low onset
potential is notably supported by the nanosized α-Fe2O3 with substitutional defects of Bife
+ and oxygen vacancy (VO) to overcome the limitation
of natural α-Fe2O3. A density functional
theory (DFT) calculation also indicated that the water adsorption
step on the modified 5%-bismuth-doped Fe2O3 (BF-5)
photoanode was thermodynamically favorable compared to the pristine
α-Fe2O3. As a result, the BF-5 photoanode
could support the water-splitting process close to a stoichiometric
ratio with Pt as the cathode. This work demonstrated an exciting strategy
to overcome the short diffusion length of α-Fe2O3 in separating excitons during photoreaction.