| Affiliation: | 1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Key Laboratory of Advanced Ceramics and Machining Technology of Ministry of Education, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072 P. R. China These authors contributed equally to this work.;2. State Key Laboratory for Advanced Metals and Materials, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing, 100083 China;3. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Key Laboratory of Advanced Ceramics and Machining Technology of Ministry of Education, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072 P. R. China;4. Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Electrochemical Energy-Storage Technologies, College of Materials Science and Technology, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, 210016 China |
| Abstract: | Cu2O is a typical photoelectrocatalyst for sustainable hydrogen production, while the fast charge recombination hinders its further development. Herein, Ni2+ cations have been doped into a Cu2O lattice (named as Ni-Cu2O) by a simple hydrothermal method and act as electron traps. Theoretical results predict that the Ni dopants produce an acceptor impurity level and lower the energy barrier of hydrogen evolution. Photoelectrochemical (PEC) measurements demonstrate that Ni-Cu2O exhibits a photocurrent density of 0.83 mA cm−2, which is 1.34 times higher than that of Cu2O. And the photostability has been enhanced by 7.81 times. Moreover, characterizations confirm the enhanced light-harvesting, facilitated charge separation and transfer, prolonged charge lifetime, and increased carrier concentration of Ni-Cu2O. This work provides deep insight into how acceptor-doping modifies the electronic structure and optimizes the PEC process. |
