Template Engineering of CuBi O Single-Crystal Thin Film Photocathodes.

To develop strategies for efficient photo-electrochemical water-splitting, it is important to understand the fundamental properties of oxide photoelectrodes by synthesizing and investigating their single-crystal thin films. However, it is challenging to synthesize high-quality single-crystal thin films from copper-based oxide photoelectrodes due to the occurrence of significant defects such as copper or oxygen vacancies and grains. Here, the CuBi O (CBO) single-crystal thin film photocathode is achieved using a NiO template layer grown on single-crystal SrTiO (STO) (001) substrate via pulsed laser deposition.

Vastly enhanced photoresponsivities of phase-controlled tin sulfide thin films.

Herein, we reveal extraordinary enhancements in the photoresponsivities of tin sulfide (SnS) grown on SiO/Si wafers through post-phase transformations induced by electron beam irradiation (EBI) and crystallization. Amorphous SnS thin films were formed by room-temperature sputtering, and as-deposited films were subsequently transformed into hexagonal SnS and orthorhombic SnS phases by EBI at 600 and 800 V respectively, for only one minute. The use of a low-energy electron beam was sufficient to fabricate a SnS photodetector, with no additional heating required.

Long-term stabilized high-density CuBiO/NiO heterostructure thin film photocathode grown by pulsed laser deposition.

Harvesting sustainable hydrogen through water-splitting requires a durable photoelectrode to achieve high efficiency and long lifetime. Dense, uniform CuBiO/NiO thin film photocathodes grown by pulsed laser deposition achieved photocurrent density over 1.5 mA cm at 0.

Direct In Situ Growth of Centimeter-Scale Multi-Heterojunction MoS/WS/WSe Thin-Film Catalyst for Photo-Electrochemical Hydrogen Evolution.

To date, the in situ fabrication of the large-scale van der Waals multi-heterojunction transition metal dichalcogenides (multi-TMDs) is significantly challenging using conventional deposition methods. In this study, vertically stacked centimeter-scale multi-TMD (MoS/WS/WSe and MoS/WSe) thin films are successfully fabricated via sequential pulsed laser deposition (PLD), which is an in situ growth process. The fabricated MoS/WS/WSe thin film on p-type silicon (p-Si) substrate is designed to form multistaggered gaps (type-II band structure) with p-Si, and this film exhibits excellent spatial and thickness uniformity, which is verified by Raman spectroscopy.