A versatile synthesis strategy and band insights of monoclinic clinobisvanite BiVO4 thin films for enhanced photoelectrochemical water splitting activity

Abstract

Monoclinic clinobisvanite BiVO4 is one of the promising and extensively researched material for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting. However, no substantial progress has been made to tune the morphology and to explore a wide range of dopants to BiVO4 and heterojunction systems that could affect its PEC activity. Given this, here we propose a versatile BiVO4 thin film synthesis strategy that allows morphology tunability, the feasibility of doping, and heterojunction formation in a single step. The presence of the monoclinic phase was confirmed, and detailed PEC and spectroscopic properties were evaluated to explore water splitting activity and band edge insights. The strategy was extended to fabricate different nanostructures by changing the capping agents and demonstrated the feasibility of Al doping and heterojunction formation with WO3 nanostructure for enhanced PEC activity. Importantly, the proposed strategy could be exploited using new capping agents and dopants for simultaneously obtaining doped BiVO4 in heterojunction systems having unique morphology.