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Rigorous substrate cleaning process for reproducible thin film hematite (α-Fe2O3) photoanodes

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Abstract

Hematite (α-Fe2O3) photoanodes are widely studied as candidates for water splitting photoelectrochemical (PEC) cells. To speed up the development of high efficiency hematite photoanodes, systematic investigations of the effect of material properties such as dopants and microstructure on PEC properties that determine the photoanode performance are crucial. Toward this end, this work presents a route for reproducible fabrication of thin film hematite photoanodes with reproducible microstructure and PEC properties. Hematite thin (50 nm) films are deposited by pulsed laser deposition from a Ti-doped (1 cation%) Fe2O3 target onto cleaned transparent conducting substrates (fluorinated tin oxide, FTO, coated glass substrates). Special attention is paid to rigorous cleaning of the substrates prior to the hematite deposition, which is found to be crucial for achieving highly reproducible results. Specimens prepared by this route display homogenous conformal coating with very little spread in PEC properties between different specimens, meeting the necessary prerequisite for systematic investigation of hematite photoanodes.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Program (FP/2007–2013)/ERC Grant Agreement n. 617516, and from the Israeli Ministry of Science, Technology and Space (Grant No. 3–9699). The results were obtained using central facilities at the Technion’s Hydrogen Technologies Research Laboratory (HTRL), supported by the Adelis Foundation and by the Solar Fuels I-CORE program of the Planning and Budgeting Committee and the Israel Science Foundation (Grant No. 152/11), the Photovoltaic Laboratory, supported by the Nancy & Stephen Grand Technion Energy Program (GTEP) and by the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute (RBNI), and the Micro and Nano Fabrication Unit (MNFU).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, 32000, Israel

    Kirtiman Deo Malviya, Hen Dotan & Avner Rothschild

  2. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, 305-701, Republic of Korea

    Ki Ro Yoon & Il-Doo Kim

Authors
  1. Kirtiman Deo Malviya
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  2. Hen Dotan
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  3. Ki Ro Yoon
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  4. Il-Doo Kim
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  5. Avner Rothschild
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Correspondence to Avner Rothschild.

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Malviya, K.D., Dotan, H., Yoon, K.R. et al. Rigorous substrate cleaning process for reproducible thin film hematite (α-Fe2O3) photoanodes. Journal of Materials Research 31, 1565–1573 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2015.300

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/jmr.2015.300

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