Efficient Light Absorption by GaN Truncated Nanocones for High Performance Water Splitting Applications
Type
ArticleAuthors
Kim, Yeong JaeLee, Gil Ju
Kim, Seungkyu
Min, Jung-Wook
Jeong, Sang Yun
Yoo, Young Jin
Lee, Sanghan
Song, Young Min
KAUST Department
Photonics LaboratoryDate
2018-08-07Online Publication Date
2018-08-07Print Publication Date
2018-08-29Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/630508
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Show full item recordAbstract
Despite the importance of gallium nitride (GaN) nanostructures for photocatalytic activity, relatively little attention has been paid to their geometrical optimization on the basis of wave optics. In this study, we present GaN truncated nanocones to provide a strategy for improving solar water splitting efficiencies, compared to the efficiency provided by the conventional geometries (i.e., flat surface, cylindrical, and cone shapes). Computational results with a finite difference time domain (FDTD) method and a rigorous coupled-wave analysis (RCWA) reveal important aspects of truncated nanocones, which effectively concentrate light in the center of the nanostructures. The introduction of nanostructures is highly recommended to address the strong light reflection of photocatalytic materials and carrier lifetime issues. To fabricate the truncated nanocones at low cost and with large-area, a dry etching method was employed with thermally dewetted metal nanoparticles, which enables controllability of desired features on a wafer scale. Experimental results exhibit that the photocurrent density of truncated nanocones is improved about three times higher compared to that of planar GaN.Citation
Kim YJ, Lee GJ, Kim S, Min J-W, Jeong SY, et al. (2018) Efficient Light Absorption by GaN Truncated Nanocones for High Performance Water Splitting Applications. ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 10: 28672–28678. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acsami.8b09084.Sponsors
This work was supported by an Institute for Information & Communications Technology Promotion (IITP) grant funded by the Korea government (MSIP) (No.2017000709), The Creative Materials Discovery Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Korea government (MSIP) (NRF-2017M3D1A1039288) and Korea Basic Science Institute under the R&D program (Project No. D37615) supervised by the Ministry of Science.Publisher
American Chemical Society (ACS)Additional Links
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsami.8b09084ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1021/acsami.8b09084