High Performance Ferroelectric-modulated Photoelectrodes by Using Grid Charge Collector

Metal oxide-based photoelectrochemicals (PEC) are promising for solar-fuel conversion if the issues of excessive charge carrier recombination in bulk can be resolved. Ferroelectric modulation of photoelectrodes is a remedial strategy but is less available due to the contradiction between the screening effect and free carrier collection. This work designed and fabricated a novel ferroelectric-modulated photocathode (p-type CuBi2O4/PbZrTiO, CBO/PZT) with gird-like gold (G-Au) charge collector under theoretical guidance. Several characterizations, including Multiphysics simulations and optoelectronic and interfacial electronic energy levels calculations, proved the critical role of the G-Au charge collector in decoupling charge collecting and screening. As a result, the positively polarized photocathode exhibited the best performance with an average H2O2 concentration around 1.5 mol (L h m(2))(-1). Thus, this work demonstrated the successful integration of ferroelectric in PEC photoelectrodes with improved photocarrier collection using a grid metal collector, which can be broadly applied to other optoelectronic systems.