| 초록 |
This abstract presents an effective and the simplest method toimprove the photoelectrochemical water-splitting ability of grown ZnO nanorod arrays. In the hydrothermal growth of ZnO NRAs, Zn(OH)2 species are formed, which act as trapping sites of photoexcited charges. We found that those inherent charge-trapping sites could be annihilated by the desorption of the hydroxyl groups upon vacuum annealing above 200 °C, which resulted in an enhancement of the charge-separation efficiency and photocurrent density. Another drastic increase occurred when ZnO NRAs were treated with annealing at higher temperature (700 °C), which can be attributed to the introduced oxygen vacancies acting as shallow donors in the ZnO crystal lattice. The removal of the charge-trapping Zn(OH)2 and the generation of oxygen vacancies were confirmed by PL and XPS analyses. The ZnO NRAs treated by this simple method yield a photocurrent density of 600 μA/cm2 at 1.23 VRHE, which is 20 times higher than that obtained from as-grown ZnO NRAs. |
