{"title":"Highest Solar-to-Hydrogen Conversion Efficiency in Cu2ZnSnS4 Photocathodes and Its Directly Unbiased Solar Seawater Splitting.","authors":"Muhammad Abbas,Shuo Chen,Zhidong Li,Muhammad Ishaq,Zhuanghao Zheng,Juguang Hu,Zhenghua Su,Yanbo Li,Liming Ding,Guangxing Liang","doi":"10.1007/s40820-025-01755-8","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Despite being an excellent candidate for a photocathode, Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) performance is limited by suboptimal bulk and interfacial charge carrier dynamics. In this work, we introduce a facile and versatile CZTS precursor seed layer engineering technique, which significantly enhances crystal growth and mitigates detrimental defects in the post-sulfurized CZTS light-absorbing films. This effective optimization of defects and charge carrier dynamics results in a highly efficient CZTS/CdS/TiO2/Pt thin-film photocathode, achieving a record half-cell solar-to-hydrogen (HC-STH) conversion efficiency of 9.91%. Additionally, the photocathode exhibits a highest photocurrent density (Jph) of 29.44 mA cm-2 (at 0 VRHE) and favorable onset potential (Von) of 0.73 VRHE. Furthermore, our CTZS photocathode demonstrates a remarkable Jph of 16.54 mA cm-2 and HC-STH efficiency of 2.56% in natural seawater, followed by an impressive unbiased STH efficiency of 2.20% in a CZTS-BiVO4 tandem cell. The scalability of this approach is underscored by the successful fabrication of a 4 × 4 cm2 module, highlighting its significant potential for practical, unbiased in situ solar seawater splitting applications.","PeriodicalId":714,"journal":{"name":"Nano-Micro Letters","volume":"76 1","pages":"257"},"PeriodicalIF":26.6000,"publicationDate":"2025-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Nano-Micro Letters","FirstCategoryId":"88","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s40820-025-01755-8","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"材料科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"Engineering","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Despite being an excellent candidate for a photocathode, Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) performance is limited by suboptimal bulk and interfacial charge carrier dynamics. In this work, we introduce a facile and versatile CZTS precursor seed layer engineering technique, which significantly enhances crystal growth and mitigates detrimental defects in the post-sulfurized CZTS light-absorbing films. This effective optimization of defects and charge carrier dynamics results in a highly efficient CZTS/CdS/TiO2/Pt thin-film photocathode, achieving a record half-cell solar-to-hydrogen (HC-STH) conversion efficiency of 9.91%. Additionally, the photocathode exhibits a highest photocurrent density (Jph) of 29.44 mA cm-2 (at 0 VRHE) and favorable onset potential (Von) of 0.73 VRHE. Furthermore, our CTZS photocathode demonstrates a remarkable Jph of 16.54 mA cm-2 and HC-STH efficiency of 2.56% in natural seawater, followed by an impressive unbiased STH efficiency of 2.20% in a CZTS-BiVO4 tandem cell. The scalability of this approach is underscored by the successful fabrication of a 4 × 4 cm2 module, highlighting its significant potential for practical, unbiased in situ solar seawater splitting applications.
期刊介绍:
Nano-Micro Letters is a peer-reviewed, international, interdisciplinary, and open-access journal published under the SpringerOpen brand.
Nano-Micro Letters focuses on the science, experiments, engineering, technologies, and applications of nano- or microscale structures and systems in various fields such as physics, chemistry, biology, material science, and pharmacy.It also explores the expanding interfaces between these fields.
Nano-Micro Letters particularly emphasizes the bottom-up approach in the length scale from nano to micro. This approach is crucial for achieving industrial applications in nanotechnology, as it involves the assembly, modification, and control of nanostructures on a microscale.