Abstract
In this study, WO3/CuO and BiVO4/WO3/CuO heterojunction photoelectrodes were fabricated to improve the photoelectrochemical properties of CuO photoelectrodes. Regarding the WO3/CuO photoelectrodes, we investigated the effects of thermal annealing after CuO growth and annealing temperature after depositing WO3 on CuO. The sample annealed at 400 °C after WO3 deposition and without annealing after CuO growth had a higher photocurrent density than the CuO photoelectrode; however, it still had a low photostability of 37 %. Regarding the BiVO4/WO3/CuO photoelectrodes, we investigated the effects of annealing on WO3/CuO and the annealing temperature and duration after BiVO4 deposition. Accordingly, we found that the light absorbance, full width at half maximum of the CuO XRD (020) peak, flat-band potential, acceptor density, and charge transfer resistance were highly dependent on the annealing duration of BiVO4. Moreover, a large improvement in photoelectrochemical properties was obtained by fabricating BiVO4/WO3/CuO heterojunction photoelectrodes via a proper annealing process. As a result, a very high photostability of 78 % was obtained from the BiVO4/WO3/CuO photoelectrode that was annealed at 400 °C for 20 minutes only after BiVO4 deposition without annealing after CuO and WO3 depositions, which was much higher than the 21 % photostability of the CuO photoelectrode.
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