Domain-engineered BiFeO3 thin-film photoanodes for highly enhanced ferroelectric solar water splitting

Photoelectrochemical Device Designs toward Practical Solar Water Splitting: A Review on the Recent Progress of BiVO4 and BiFeO3 Photoanodes

“…As a result of such efforts, a few candidates have been introduced and investigated extensively. The promising candidates are BiVO 4 [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24], Fe 2 O 3 [25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32], and BiFeO 3 [33][34][35]. Figure 2 shows the band gap energies and band edge positions of various semiconductors with respect to the water redox potential.…”

“…The realization of such device designs is challenging, especially since it requires carefully controlled material growth techniques to expose favorably oriented crystal facets on the surface. Moreover, the application of ferroelectric into the PEC water splitting requires rigid and stable ferroelectric performance, with properties that can be made through elaborate fabrication methods, such as vacuum deposition of pulsed laser deposition (PLD) [33,35]. As a physical vapor deposition technique, PLD is well-known, as its advantages for its deposition of pure and highly crystalline thin film [50,51].…”

“…Fortunately, among the ferroelectric materials, the BiFeO 3 have a relatively narrow bandgap in the range 2.2~2.7 eV [66,67]. For that reason, various studies on the ferroelectric BiFeO 3 photoelectrodes have been reported for PEC water splitting [35,[68][69][70][71][72][73]. Recently, our group reported that the effect of applying ferroelectric BiFeO 3 thin films to PEC water splitting, which could be systematically summarized as shown in Figure 7 [35].…”

“…For that reason, various studies on the ferroelectric BiFeO 3 photoelectrodes have been reported for PEC water splitting [35,[68][69][70][71][72][73]. Recently, our group reported that the effect of applying ferroelectric BiFeO 3 thin films to PEC water splitting, which could be systematically summarized as shown in Figure 7 [35]. As described in Figure 7a-c, the schematic shows the energy band diagram of the BiFeO 3 thin film photoanodes in the PEC water splitting system to help with understanding on the effect of ferroelectric switching with different polarization states.…”

Preparation and Photoelectrochemical Property of the Dual-ferroelectric Composited Material

“…进而提高样品的催化活性 [11][12] 度上阻碍了 BVO 薄膜的光吸收，导致光生电子和 空穴浓度下降 [18][19][20] 。外场正极化 后，在 BiVO4 与 BiFeO3 界面处 BiFeO3 能带向下弯 曲程度增大，BiVO4 能带向上弯曲程度增大，导致 耗尽层宽度增大，有利于光生载流子的传输，进而 提升光电化学性能。外场负极化后，耗尽层宽度减 小，BiVO4 与 BiFeO3 界面处能带弯曲程度减小，阻 碍了光生载流子的传输 [11]…”