• Valden, Mika
• Ali-Löytty, Harri
• Bhuskute, Bela

Abstract

Inspired by the photo-electrochemical water oxidation system reported by Fujishima and Honda1, recent work has focused on functionalizing photoactive TiO2 thin films on silicon (Si) semiconductor. Targeting to design an efficient photo-electrochemical device for solar fuel production, finding suitable protection layer material for semiconductors like Si, has recently gained significant attention.<br/><br/>In this work, TiO2 thin films were deposited on highly doped Si substrate by atomic layer deposition (ALD) technique using tetrakis-dimethylamido titanium (TDMAT) and water as a precursors. In order to understand the influence of ALD parameters on TiO2 film performance in photo-electrochemical cell, ALD growth temperature was varied from 150 °C to 225 °C and film thickness from 20 nm to 50 nm. Further efforts were made to analyze the effect of post-annealing treatment in air on ALD films and its influence on photo-electrochemical water oxidation reaction.<br/><br/>The highest applied bias photon-to-current efficiency for Solar Water Splitting (SWS) was obtained in 30 nm ALD TiO2 film grown at 200 °C after post annealing at 475 °C. Annealing at higher temperatures decreased the photo-activity substantially. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy analysis of TiO2 (2 nm)/Si samples after annealing in air revealed the onset of interfacial SiO2 formation at 450 °C. SiO2 at the TiO2/Si interface act as a charge transfer barrier with detrimental consequence on SWS on TiO2/Si photo-anode.

Topics

• thin film
• x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy
• semiconductor
• Silicon
• titanium
• annealing
• interfacial
• atomic layer deposition