A Spin Coating Method To Deposit Iridium-Based Catalysts onto Silicon for Water Oxidation Photoanodes

Silicon has shown promise for use as a small band gap (1.1 eV) absorber material in photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting. However, the limited stability of silicon in acidic electrolyte requires the use of protection strategies coupled with catalysts. Herein, spin coating is used as a versatile method to directly coat silicon photoanodes with an IrOx oxygen evolution reaction (OER) catalyst, reducing the processing complexity compared to conventional fabrication schemes. Biphasic strontium chloride/iridium oxide (SrCl2:IrOx) catalysts are also developed, and both catalysts form photoactive junctions with silicon and demonstrate high photoanode activity. The iridium oxide photoanode displays a photocurrent onset at 1.06 V vs reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE), while the SrCl2:IrOx photoanode onsets earlier at 0.96 V vs RHE. The differing potentials are consistent with the observed photovoltages of 0.43 and 0.53 V for the IrOx and SrCl2:IrOx, respectively. By measuring the oxidation of a reversible r...