Authors: Yong Liu, Mingjian Zhang, Zhuan Wang, Jiandong He, Jie Zhang, Sheng Ye, Xiuli Wang, Dongfeng Li, Heng Yin, Qianhong Zhu, Huanwang Jing, Yuxiang Weng, Feng Pan, Ruotian Chen, Can Li, Fengtao Fan
Published: 2022-07-22
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-32002-y
Source: Full article
AbstractFerroelectrics are considered excellent photocatalytic candidates for solar fuel production because of the unidirectional charge separation and above-gap photovoltage. Nevertheless, the performance of ferroelectric photocatalysts is often moderate. A few studies showed that these types of photocatalysts could achieve overall water splitting. This paper proposes an approach to fabricating interfacial charge-collecting nanostructures on positive and negative domains of ferroelectric, enabling water splitting in ferroelectric photocatalysts. The present study observes efficient accumulations of photogenerated electrons and holes within their thermalization length (~50 nm) around Au nanoparticles located in the positive and negative domains of a BaTiO3 single crystal. Photocatalytic overall water splitting is observed on a ferroelectric BaTiO3 single crystal after assembling oxidation and reduction cocatalysts on the positively and negatively charged Au nanoparticles, respectively. The fabrication of bipolar charge-collecting structures on ferroelectrics to achieve overall water splitting offers a way to utilize the energetic photogenerated charges in solar energy conversion.