Citation: Wenhao Chen, Jian Du, Hanbin Zhang, Hancheng Wang, Kaicheng Xu, Zhujun Gao, Jiaming Tong, Jin Wang, Junjun Xue, Ting Zhi, Longlu Wang. Surface treatment of GaN nanowires for enhanced photoelectrochemical water-splitting[J]. Chinese Chemical Letters, ;2024, 35(9): 109168. doi: 10.1016/j.cclet.2023.109168 shu

Surface treatment of GaN nanowires for enhanced photoelectrochemical water-splitting

Wenhao Chen ^{a, b} ,
Jian Du ^b ,
Hanbin Zhang ^b ,
Hancheng Wang ^b ,
Kaicheng Xu ^a ,
Zhujun Gao ^b ,
Jiaming Tong ^a ,
Jin Wang ^b ,
Junjun Xue ^b ,
Ting Zhi ^{b, *,} ,
Longlu Wang ^{b, *,}

a.
College of Integrated Circuit Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing 210023, China
b.
College of Electronic and Optical Engineering & College of Flexible Electronics (Future Technology), Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Nanjing 210023, China

zhit@njupt.edu.cn

wanglonglu@njupt.edu.cn

Received Date: 25 July 2023
Revised Date: 3 September 2023
Accepted Date: 6 October 2023
Available Online: 7 October 2023

Figures(6)

High-efficiency hydrogen production through photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting has emerged as a promising solution to address current global energy challenges. Ⅲ-nitride semiconductor photoelectrodes with nanostructures have demonstrated great potential in the near future due to their high light absorption, tunable direct band gap, and strong physicochemical stability. However, several issues, including surface trapping centers, surface Fermi level pinning, and surface band bending, need to be addressed. In this work, enhanced photovoltaic properties have been achieved using gallium nitride (GaN) nanowires (NWs) photoelectrodes by adopting an alkaline solution surface treatment method to reduce the surface states. It was found that surface oxides on NWs can be removed by an alkaline solution treatment without changing the surface morphology through X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and other characterization methods. These findings provide new insights to the development of high-efficiency photoelectrodes for new energy source applications.
- Water splitting,
- Photoelectrochemical cells,
- Gallium nitride,
- Surface treatment,
- Nano-architectures
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