科研之友
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摘要
Nowadays, efficient production of storable clean hydrogen from abundant and sustainable solar energy is increasingly being identified as an essential route to realize the future sustainable hydrogen energy. Here we demonstrate a p-type amorphous silicon carbon (a-SiC:H) protected amorphous silicon/amorphous silicon germanium (a-Si/a-SiGe) tandem photocathode that is highly promising to realize a stable, large-scale, and efficient solar water splitting device. Our studies show that by electrically lossless coating a p-type a-SiC:H protection layer on an a-Si/a-SiGe tandem thin film solar cell with a preceding n-type narrow-gap mc-Si:H layer to improve the electron transfer, a high photocurrent onset potential can be achieved for the protected a-Si/a-SiGe tandem photocathode. In comparison to reported intrinsic a-SiC:H protection layers and n-type layers in a-Si/a-SiGe tandem cells, the proposed p-type a-SiC:H protection layer shows a better hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) catalytic activity, which is comparable to amorphous molybdenum sulfide (a-MoS3) catalyzed unprotected a-Si/a-SiGe tandem photocathodes even without any HER catalyst. Combined with the hybrid photoelectrode concept, this stable photocathode with high photovoltage is highly promising to form a wireless, highly stable, and efficient monolithic solar water splitting device for hydrogen production.
