Investigation of p-type spinel structure as photocathode thin films under neutral pH condition

Abstract

Owing to the special electronic structure and earth-abundance, spinel structure-based oxides (AB2O4, A = Ni, Cu and B= Co, Fe) have considerable attractive for photo/electro/catalysis. In this work, AB2O4 thin films were synthesized via the spray pyrolysis method on FTO substrates and annealed at 550 °C for 1 h. The structural, morphology, optical and photoelectrochemical properties were studied. The crystalline results show that the thin films have a cubic spinel structure, and the morphology results show a fine grainy surface. The photoelectrochemical measurements in terms of photocurrent density, Incident Photon-to-Current Efficiency (IPCE) and applied bias photon-to-current efficiency (ABPE) were investigated for all samples under neutral pH condition. The results of photocurrent density were (109, 41, 28, 25) μA/cm2 and the IPCE results at 530 nm were 3.05% > 1.52% > 1.42% > 1.32% for CuCo2O4, NiCo2O4, CuFe2O4 and NiFe2O4 respectively under AM 1.5G (100 mW/cm−2) and applied bias −0.5 V. The band structure including the conduction/valence band was determined by Mott-Schottky plot revealing the ability of hydrogen production from neutral water.