title: High efficiency solar-to-hydrogen conversion on a monolithically integrated InGaN/GaN/Si adaptive tunnel junction photocathode.
abstract: H2 generation under sunlight offers great potential for a sustainable fuel production system. To achieve high efficiency solar-to-hydrogen conversion, multijunction photoelectrodes have been commonly employed to absorb a large portion of the solar spectrum and to provide energetic charge carriers for water splitting. However, the design and performance of such tandem devices has been fundamentally limited by the current matching between various absorbing layers. Here, by exploiting the lateral carrier extraction scheme of one-dimensional nanowire structures, we have demonstrated that a dual absorber photocathode, consisting of p-InGaN/tunnel junction/n-GaN nanowire arrays and a Si solar cell wafer, can operate efficiently without the strict current matching requirement. The monolithically integrated photocathode exhibits an applied bias photon-to-current efficiency of 8.7% at a potential of 0.33 V versus normal hydrogen electrode and nearly unity Faradaic efficiency for H2 generation. Such an adaptive multijunction architecture can surpass the design and performance restrictions of conventional tandem photoelectrodes.
authors: †Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, McGill University, 3480 University Street, Montreal, Quebec H3A 0E9, Canada.
authors: Shizhao
authors: S
authors: Fan
authors: †Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, McGill University, 3480 University Street, Montreal, Quebec H3A 0E9, Canada.
authors: Bandar
authors: B
authors: AlOtaibi
authors: ‡Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Canadian Centre for Electron Microscopy, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontairo L8S 4M1, Canada.
authors: Steffi Y
authors: SY
authors: Woo
authors: †Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, McGill University, 3480 University Street, Montreal, Quebec H3A 0E9, Canada.
authors: Yongjie
authors: Y
authors: Wang
authors: ‡Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Canadian Centre for Electron Microscopy, McMaster University, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, Ontairo L8S 4M1, Canada.
authors: Gianluigi A
authors: GA
authors: Botton
authors: †Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, McGill University, 3480 University Street, Montreal, Quebec H3A 0E9, Canada.
authors: Zetian
authors: Z
authors: Mi
keywords: InGaN; Nanowire; Si solar cell; hydrogen; photoelectrochemical water splitting