In this study, we demonstrated photoelectrochemical (PEC) hydrogen generation using p-GaN photoelectrodes associated with immersed finger-type indium tin oxide (IF-ITO) ohmic contacts. The IF-ITO/p-GaN photoelectrode scheme exhibits higher photocurrent and gas generation rate compared with p-GaN photoelectrodes without IF-ITO ohmic contacts. In addition, the critical external bias for detectable hydrogen generation can be effectively reduced by the use of IF-ITO ohmic contacts. This finding can be attributed to the greatly uniform distribution of the IF-ITO/p-GaN photoelectrode applied fields over the whole working area. As a result, the collection efficiency of photo-generated holes by electrode contacts is higher than that of p-GaN photoelectrodes without IF-ITO contacts. Microscopy revealed a tiny change on the p-GaN surfaces before and after hydrogen generation. In contrast, photoelectrodes composed of n-GaN have a short lifetime due to n-GaN corrosion during hydrogen generation. Findings of this study indicate that the ITO finger contacts on p-GaN layer is a potential candidate as photoelectrodes for PEC hydrogen generation.

To reduce light reflection and enlarge the effective reaction surface area at the n-GaN/electrolyte interface, n-GaN epitaxial layers with naturally textured surface are utilized. The layers are combined with Cr/Au ohmic contacts on n-GaN to form working electrodes that generate hydrogen by direct photoelectrolysis of water. Although the surface reflection on the naturally textured n-GaN samples is lower than that on n-GaN epitaxial layers with flat surface, our results reveal that the photocurrent ͑I ph ͒ and gas generation rates ͑R gas ͒ obtained from the naturally rough n-GaN samples are lower than those from the flat samples. The results can be attributed to the fact that the rough n-GaN surface caused by dense surface pits leads to significant recombination of photogenerated carriers with charged defects; this occurs before carriers reach the ohmic contacts, thereby resulting in lower I ph and R gas. Related analyses have been performed and presented in this paper to initially explain the possible mechanism.