An efficient and stable photoelectrochemical system with 9% solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency via InGaP/GaAs double junction

• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-12977-x
• Publication Date: 2019-11-21T11:03:16Z
• Authors: Purushothaman Var...; Hui-Chun Fu; Yu-Cheng Kao; Ray-Hua Horng; Jr-Hau He
• Keywords: Photoelectrochemical cell; Solar energy conversion

Despite III-V semiconductors demonstrating extraordinary solar-to-hydrogen (STH) conversion efficiencies, high cost and poor stability greatly impede their practical implementation in photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting applications. Here, we present a simple efficient strategy for III-V-based photoelectrodes that functionally spatially decouples the light harvesting component of device from electrolysis part eliminates parasitic absorption, reduces cost, enhances without any compromise efficiency. The monolithically integrated PEC cell was fabricated by an epitaxial lift-off transfer inversely grown InGaP/GaAs to robust Ni-substrate resultant photoanode exhibits STH efficiency ~9% with ~150 h. Moreover, ability access both sides device, constructed fully-integrated, unassisted-wireless "artificial leaf" system ~6%. excellent achieved herein are attributed harvesting/catalysis decoupling scheme, which concurrently improves optical, electrical, electrocatalytic characteristics.