Silver Nanoparticle Induced Photocurrent Enhancement at WO₃ Photoanodes

Abstract

Silver screen: Thin silver nanoparticle layers embedded within a 1 μm thick semiconducting WO3 film on conducting glass substrates enhance optical absorption over a broad wavelength region. The combination of light scattering and nearby electromagnetic‐field effects causes a large increase of photocurrents associated with water splitting generated at the WO3 photoanodes under simulated solar light irradiation.

Near‐Field Plasmonic Functionalization of Light Harvesting Oxide–Oxide Heterojunctions for Efficient Solar Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting: The AuNP/ZnFe2O4/ZnO System

“…Therefore, the overall enhancement for the entire solar spectrum is compromised. In line with this, most of the other semiconductor photocatalysts such as Fe 2 O 3, 7 ZnO,8 WO 3 9 have also shown moderate plasmonic enhancement under simulated 1 Sun conditions. In all these plasmonics based studies the work has been focused on a single junction of a semiconductor oxide with metal NPs serving as the photoelectrodes.…”

Cold sprayed WO3and TiO2electrodes for photoelectrochemical water and methanol oxidation in renewable energy applications

“…65% water oxidation efficiency at 400 nm in 1 M H 2 SO 4 and at 1.5 V vs. RHE were reported. 52 The photocurrent efficiencies of spin coated FTO/WO 3 photoanodes reach a similar IPCE maximum at 360 nm in 0.1 M H 2 SO 4 and at 1.74 V vs. NHE for water oxidation. 39 The lower photocurrent efficiencies for the cold sprayed Ti/WO 3 photoanodes are attributed to the higher film thickness, as well as to the less nanoporous structure.…”

Enabling visible-light water photooxidation by coordinative incorporation of Co(II/III) cocatalytic sites into organic-inorganic hybrids: quantum chemical modeling and photoelectrochemical performance

“…It effectively rules out the use of passivated n-type silicon photoanodes, as well as the most widely investigated binary (e.g. WO 3 [9,10] or α-Fe 2 O 3 [11,12]) and ternary (e.g. BiVO 4 [13]) metal oxides, since these all have their electronic quasi-Fermi level (i.e.…”