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Updated: Jan 4, 2026
Harvesting Solar Energy by Means of Charge-Separating Nanocrystals and Their Solids
Published on: August 23, 2012
Surface-Polarity-Induced Spatial Charge Separation Boosts Photocatalytic Overall Water Splitting on GaN Nanorod
Zheng Li1,2, Liang Zhang3,2, Yong Liu1
1State Key Laboratory of Catalysis, Dalian National Laboratory for Clean Energy, Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dalian, 116023, China.
Abstract:
Photocatalytic overall water splitting has been recognized as a promising approach to convert solar energy into hydrogen. However, most of the photocatalysts suffer from low efficiencies mainly because of poor charge separation. Herein, taking a model semiconductor gallium nitride (GaN) as an example, we uncovered that photogenerated electrons and holes can be spatially separated to the nonpolar and polar surfaces of GaN nanorod arrays, which is presumably ascribed to the different surface band bending induced by the surface polarity. The photogenerated charge separation efficiency of GaN can be enhanced significantly from about 8 % to more than 80 % via co-exposing polar and nonpolar surfaces. Furthermore, spatially assembling reduction and oxidation cocatalysts on the nonpolar and polar surfaces remarkably boosts photocatalytic overall water splitting, with the quantum efficiency increased from 0.9 % for the film photocatalyst to 6.9 % for the nanorod arrays photocatalyst.
