Cuprous Oxide Photoelectrodes for Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting towards Unassisted Solar Hydrogen Production

To handle global problems of energy and environmental pollution, efforts have been made to harvest energy from sunlight. Photoelectrochemcal water splitting is an efficient way to achieve sustainable solar-fuel production. However, to make this method competitive to traditional methods, low-cost, abundant and high-performance semiconductor materials are required. Among which, Cu2O is a promising candidate. Conformal atomic layer deposited layers are applied on the photocathode to improve performance and stability. Electrodeposited catalyst composing earth-abundant elements are used to decrease kinetic barrier. A great enhancement on overall performance is achieved.