Flame Synthesized Single Crystal Nanocolumn-Structured WO3 Thin Films for Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting

Tungsten oxide thin films have been found as an active visible light driven photoanode material for photoelectrochemical water splitting due to its good stability in aqueous solution and energetically favorable valence band position for water oxidation. Morphology control, which determines the performance of WO3 photoanode, is one of most focuses of recent research interests. In this work, we successfully prepared monoclinic WO3 thin films on ITO glass at low range of substrate temperature with a fabrication rate around 100 nm per minute by using aerosol flame deposition process. Single crystal nanocolumns with both triangular pyramid-like and triangular prism-like structure were obtained at certain process conditions. Photoelectrochemical properties of photoelectrodes assembled with both structured WO3 thin films were investigated. The prism-like nanocolumn-structured thin film generated the current density of 1.58 mAcm(-2) at potential of 1.0 V versus Ag/AgCl in 0.5 M H2SO4 solution under illumination of AM 1.5 simulated solar light (100 mVcm(-2)). It presented superior photoelectrochemical performance to pyramid-like nanocolumn-structured WO3 thin film.