Tuning the near-gap electronic structure of Cu2O by anion–cation co-doping for enhanced solar energy conversion

Abstract

Doping is an effective strategy to tune the electronic properties of semiconductors, but some side effects caused by mono-doping degrade the specific performance of matrixes. As a model system to minimize photoproduced electron-hole pairs recombination by anion–cation co-doping, we investigate the electronic structures and optical properties of (Fe[Formula: see text]+[Formula: see text]N) co-doped Cu2O using the first-principles calculations. Compared to the case of mono-doping, the Fe[Formula: see text]N[Formula: see text] (a Fe (N) atom substituting a Cu (O) atom) co-doping reduces the energy cost of doping as a consequence of the charge compensation between the iron and nitrogen impurities, which eliminates the isolated levels (induced by mono-dopant) in the band gap. Interestingly, it is found that the contributions of different host atoms (Cu and O) away from anion (N) and cation (Fe) dopants to the variation of near band gap electronic structure of the co-doped Cu2O are different. Moreover, co-doping reduces the band gap and increases the visible-light absorption of Cu2O. Both band gap reduction and low recombination rate are critical elements for efficient light-to-current conversion in co-doped semiconductor photocatalysts. These findings raise the prospect of using co-doped Cu2O with specifically engineered electronic properties in a variety of solar applications.