Efficient and Stable Silicon Photocathodes Coated with Vertically Standing Nano-MoS₂ Films for Solar Hydrogen Production

Abstract

Water splitting in a photoelectrochemical cell, which converts sunlight into hydrogen energy, has recently received intense research. Silicon is suitable as a viable light-harvesting material for constructing such cell; however, there is a need to improve its stability and explore a cheap and efficient cocatalyst. Here we fabricate highly efficient and stable photocathodes by integrating crystalline MoS₂ catalyst with ∼2 nm Al₂O₃ protected n⁺p-Si. Al₂O₃ acts as a protective and passivative layer of the Si surface, while the sputtering method using a MoS₂ target along with a postannealing leads to a vertically standing, conformal, and crystalline nano-MoS₂ layer on Al₂O₃/n⁺p-Si photocathode. Efficient (0.4 V vs RHE onset potential and 35.6 mA/cm² saturated photocurrent measured under 100 mA/cm² Xe lamp illumination) and stable (above 120 h continuous water splitting) photocathode was obtained, which opens the door for the MoS₂ catalyst to be applied in photoelectrochemical hydrogen evolution in a facile and scalable way.