title: A nitride based polarization-engineered photocathode for water splitting without a p-type semiconductor.
abstract: Photoelectrochemical water splitting is a promising way for hydrogen production with low environmental burden. Although III-nitride semiconductors have potentially favorable properties as water splitting photoelectrodes, they have several limitations for practical use currently. In this study, the concept of a polarization-engineered nitride photocathode for water splitting is proposed to overcome this problem. We observed that the proposed GaN/AlN/GaN structure worked as a photocathode even though it consisted of only n-type III-nitride semiconductors. This polarization-engineered photocathode showed a remarkably stable and relatively high photocurrent since it can avoid the causes of problems from which both n-type and p-type conventional GaN photoelectrodes suffer.
authors.affiliation: School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8656, Japan. nakamura@hotaka.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp.
authors.forename: Akihiro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Nakamura
authors.forename: Katsushi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Fujii
authors.forename: Masakazu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sugiyama
authors.forename: Yoshiaki
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Nakano