Cu nanoparticles hybridized with ZnO thin film for enhanced photoelectrochemical oxygen evolution

Plasmonic enhanced photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting is recognized as an effective approach to improve the solar to hydrogen efficiency. However, the most reports focused on the noble metals such as Au, Ag and Pt and the high cost restricts the practical application. In this work, the ZnO films hybridized with Cu nano particles (NPs) are fabricated by a two-step dc magnetron sputtering method and used as the photoanodes in water oxidation. Various characterizations including XRD, AFM, XPS, TEM, UV-Vis and PL spectra have been conducted, respectively. Moreover, the PEC performance of the samples is also investigated. Compared with the bare ZnO photoanode, the Cu/ZnO photoanode shows higher photocurrent densities under illumination. The enhancement can be mainly ascribed to the improved visible absorption and electrons conductivity based on the surface plasmon resonance effect of Cu NPs. Therefore, it offers a brand new facile method for improving the performance of PEC reactions.