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Synthesis and characterization of band gap-reduced ZnO:N and ZnO:(Al,N) films for photoelectrochemical water splitting

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 January 2011

Sudhakar Shet ,
Kwang-Soon Ahn ,
Todd Deutsch ,
Heli Wang ,
Nuggehalli Ravindra ,
Yanfa Yan ,
John Turner  and
Mowafak Al-Jassim
Sudhakar Shet*
Affiliation:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Colorado 80401; and New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, New Jersey 07102
Kwang-Soon Ahn
Affiliation:
Energy & Environment Laboratory, Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do 446-712, Republic of Korea
Heli Wang
Affiliation:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Colorado 80401
Nuggehalli Ravindra
Affiliation:
New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, New Jersey 07102
Mowafak Al-Jassim
Affiliation:
National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, Colorado 80401
*
a)Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: sudhakar.shet@nrel.gov
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Abstract

ZnO thin films with significantly reduced band gaps were synthesized by doping N and codoping Al and N at 100 °C. All the films were synthesized by radiofrequency magnetron sputtering on F-doped tin-oxide-coated glass. We found that codoped ZnO:(Al,N) thin films exhibited significantly enhanced crystallinity compared with ZnO doped solely with N, ZnO:N, at the same growth conditions. Furthermore, annealed ZnO:(Al,N) thin films exhibited enhanced N incorporation over ZnO:N films. As a result, ZnO:(Al,N) films exhibited better photocurrents than ZnO:N films grown with pure N doping, suggesting that charge-compensated donor–acceptor codoping could be a potential method for band gap reduction of wide-band gap oxide materials to improve their photoelectrochemical performance.

Keywords

Energy generationGrain sizeMicrostructure
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Materials Research , Volume 25 , Issue 1: Photocatalysis for Energy and Environmental Sustainability , January 2010 , pp. 69 - 75
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2010

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