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Updated: Feb 16, 2026

Preparation of Free-Surface Hyperbolic Water Vortices
Published on: July 28, 2023
Surface Photovoltage Measurements on a Particle Tandem Photocatalyst for Overall Water Splitting
Mauricio A Melo1,2, Zongkai Wu1, Benjamin A Nail1
1Department of Chemistry, University of California, Davis , One Shields Avenue, Davis, California 95616, United States.
Abstract:
Surface photovoltage spectroscopy (SPS) is used to measure the photopotential across a Ru-SrTiO3:Rh/BiVO4 particle tandem overall water splitting photocatalyst. The tandem is synthesized from Ru-modified SrTiO3:Rh nanocrystals and BiVO4 microcrystals by electrostatic assembly followed by thermal annealing. It splits water into H2 and O2 with an apparent quantum efficiency of 1.29% at 435 nm and a solar to hydrogen conversion efficiency of 0.028%. According to SPS, a photovoltage develops above 2.20 eV, the effective band gap of the tandem, and reaches its maximal value of -2.45 V at 435 nm (2.44 mW cm-2), which corresponds to 96% of the theoretical limit of the photocatalyst film on the fluorine-doped tin-oxide-coated glass (FTO) substrate. Charge separation is 82% reversible with 18% of charge carriers being trapped in defect states. The unusually strong light intensity dependence of the photovoltage (1.16 V per decade) is attributed to depletion layer changes inside of the BiVO4 microcrystals. These findings promote the understanding of solar energy conversion with inorganic particle photocatalysts.
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