title: A 3D triple-deck photoanode with a strengthened structure integrality: enhanced photoelectrochemical water oxidation.
abstract: WO3/BiVO4 is one of the attractive Type II heterojunctions for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting due to its well-matched band edge positions and visible light harvesting abilities. However, two light absorption components generally suffer from poor charge collection and cannot be efficiently utilized because of non-ideal interfaces. Herein, a triple-deck three-dimensional (3D) architecture was designed through a one-step shaping process with an additional stress relaxation WO3 underlayer. The final photoanodes showed a promising photocurrent density of 5.1 mA cm(-2) at 1.23 V vs. RHE under AM 1.5G illumination. Using the uniformly distributed oxygen evolution co-catalyst (OEC) layer as the outer most shell of the WO3/BiVO4/OEC triple-deck 3D structure with a dense WO3 underlayer, the water splitting efficiency was improved dramatically by facilitating the charge transfer process at the electrode/electrolyte interface.
authors.affiliation: SKKU Advanced Institute of Nanotechnology, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon 440-746, Republic of Korea.
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Xinjian
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.forename: Kan
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Soonwoo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kwon
authors.forename: Ping
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Jung Kyu
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Kim
authors.forename: Thanh Tran
authors.initials: TT
authors.lastname: Phu
authors.forename: Gi-Ra
authors.initials: GR
authors.lastname: Yi
authors.forename: Jong Hyeok
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Park