Abstract
AbstractOwing to the versatility in their chemical and physical properties, transition metal perovskite oxides have emerged as a new category of highly efficient photocatalysts for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting. Here, to understand the underlying mechanism for the enhanced PEC water splitting in mixed perovskites, ideal epitaxial thin films of the BiFeO3–SrTiO3 system are explored. The electronic structure and carrier dynamics are determined from both experiment and density‐functional theory calculations. The intrinsic phenomena are measured in this ideal system, contrasting to commonly studied polycrystalline solid solutions where extrinsic structural features obscure the intrinsic phenomena. It is determined that when SrTiO3 is added to BiFeO3 the conduction band minimum position is raised and an exponential tail of trap states from hybridized Ti 3d and Fe 3d orbitals emerges near the conduction band edge. The presence of these trap states strongly suppresses the fast electron–hole recombination and improves the photocurrent density in the visible‐light region, up to 16× at 0 VRHE compared to the pure end member compositions. This work provides a new design approach for optimizing the PEC performance in mixed perovksite oxides.
Highlights
Owing to the versatility in their chemical and physical properties, transition eral, PEC involves absorption of the solar metal perovskite oxides have emerged as a new category of highly efficient spectrum with the aid of semiconductor photocatalysts for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting
The correlation between electronic structure and carrier dynamics is studied in detail, which provides insight into the process of photoexcited carrier relaxation and recombination. From both experiments (UV-visible absorption spectra, Raman spectra, X-ray photoemission spectroscopy (XPS), and femtosecond time-resolved transient absorption (TA) spectroscopy) and density-functional theory (DFT) calculations, we identified that, when SrTiO3 is added to BiFeO3, the conduction band minimum position is raised and an exponential tail of trap states from hybridized Ti 3d and Fe 3d orbitals emerges near the conduction band edge
In the mixed perovskite BiFeO3–SrTiO3 system, from both experiment and theory, the relation between electronic structure and carriers dynamics was studied in ideal epitaxial thin films
Summary
The quality and compositions of the BFO–STO solid solution films were investigated by X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscope (SEM), and Raman spectra. This plot can be used to further understand the charge relaxation process. The EIS results agree well with PEC and IPCE performance
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