저널

Assembling heterostructures by combining dissimilar oxide semiconductors is a promising approach to enhance charge separation and transfer in photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting. In this work, the CuO nanorods array/$Cu_2O$ thin film bilayered heterostructure was successfully fabricated by a facile method that involved a direct electrodeposition of the $Cu_2O$ thin film onto the vertically oriented CuO nanorods array to serve as the photoelectrode for the PEC water oxidation. The resulting copper-oxide-based heterostructure photoelectrode exhibited an enhanced PEC performance compared to common copper-oxide-based photoelectrodes, indicating good charge separation and transfer efficiency due to the band structure realignment at the interface. The photocurrent density and the optimal photocurrent conversion efficiency obtained on the CuO nanorods/$Cu_2O$ thin film heterostructure were $0.59mA/cm^2$ and 1.10% at 1.06 V vs. RHE, respectively. These results provide a promising route to fabricating earth-abundant copper-oxide-based photoelectrode for visible-light-driven hydrogen generation using a facile, low-cost, and scalable approach of combining electrodeposition and hydrothermal synthesis.

Copper oxide;Oxide heterostructure;photoelectrode;Photoelectrochemical water oxidation;Hydrogen production;