The spontaneous polarization in CdS to enhance the piezo-PEC performance via phase transition stress engineering

Abstract

The built-in electric field caused by piezoelectric polarization has emerged as one of the most effective strategies for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting, but is challenged by low piezoelectric polarization efficiency. Herein, we firstly introduce residual stress into CdS through phase transition stress engineering for improving the spontaneous polarization of CdS with a view to revealing the mechanism of the piezoelectric PEC (piezo-PEC) performance of CdS is advanced by the spontaneous polarization. The spontaneous polarization of CdS caused via phase transition residual stress generated built-in electric field to advance carriers separation. Moreover, the spontaneous polarization of CdS is motived a greater potential under external force than hexagonal wurtzite CdS due to the existence of phase transition residual stress, which effectively improves the piezo-PEC performance of CdS. The photocurrent density of miscibility of cubic sphalerite and hexagonal wurtzite CdS (M−CdS) is 0.61 mA/cm2 at 1.23 V vs RHE, which is almost 1.79 times of hexagonal wurtzite (H-CdS). In addition, the value of M−CdS photocurrent density is reached 2.12 mA/cm2 at 1.23 V vs RHE after ultrasound, which is almost 6.2 times of H-CdS. Our detail work proves that this strategy not only stimulates the piezo-PEC performance of CdS, but also can be extended to other hexagonal wurtzite semiconductor phase transition piezoelectric fields.