Premium
Plasmonic Enhancement in BiVO 4 Photonic Crystals for Efficient Water Splitting
Author(s) -
Zhang Liwu,
Lin ChiaYu,
Valev Ventsislav K.,
Reisner Erwin,
Steiner Ullrich,
Baumberg Jeremy J.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
small
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.785
H-Index - 236
eISSN - 1613-6829
pISSN - 1613-6810
DOI - 10.1002/smll.201400970
Subject(s) - materials science , photonic crystal , optoelectronics , photocurrent , plasmon , photonics , energy conversion efficiency , water splitting , charge carrier , surface plasmon resonance , absorption (acoustics) , nanophotonics , nanostructure , nanotechnology , nanoparticle , chemistry , photocatalysis , biochemistry , composite material , catalysis
Photo‐electrochemical water splitting is a very promising and environmentally friendly route for the conversion of solar energy into hydrogen. However, the solar‐to‐H 2 conversion efficiency is still very low due to rapid bulk recombination of charge carriers. Here, a photonic nano‐architecture is developed to improve charge carrier generation and separation by manipulating and confining light absorption in a visible‐light‐active photoanode constructed from BiVO 4 photonic crystal and plasmonic nanostructures. Synergistic effects of photonic crystal stop bands and plasmonic absorption are observed to operate in this photonic nanostructure. Within the scaffold of an inverse opal photonic crystal, the surface plasmon resonance is significantly enhanced by the photonic Bragg resonance. Nanophotonic photoanodes show AM 1.5 photocurrent densities of 3.1 ± 0.1 mA cm −2 at 1.23 V versus RHE, which is among the highest for oxide‐based photoanodes and over 4 times higher than the unstructured planar photoanode.