Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 22, 2026
Fabrication of Fully Solution Processed Inorganic Nanocrystal Photovoltaic Devices
Published on: July 8, 2016
Fabrication of TiO2/Tin-doped indium oxide-based photoelectrode coated with overlayer materials and its
Sangbaek Park1, Sangwook Lee, Donghoe Kim
1Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-744, Republic of Korea.
Abstract:
The photoelectrochemical properties of TiO2-based photoelectrodes with metal oxide overlayers (e.g., ZnO, ZrO2, MgO, and Al2O3) were investigated. The metal oxides were deposited on TiO2/tin-doped indium oxide (ITO) films by spin-coating metal-alkoxide precursors. The formation of the overlayers was confirmed by energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) and high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM). Each overlayers were well-coated on the TiO2-based films and have approximately 2 nm thickness. The prepared films were used as photoanodes in a photoelectrochemical system with a Pt counter electrode to evaluate hydrogen production performance. Comparing with other overlayers, the ZnO-coated photoelectrode exhibits the highest rate of hydrogen evolution and which is better than the uncoated one. From the photoelectrochemical and spectroscopic study, the superior hydrogen production property of the ZnO-coated TiO2 photoelectrode was attributed to both the higher light absorbance of ZnO compared to TiO2 and the formation of hydroxyl groups at the ZnO surface.
