Epitaxial Iron Oxides for Solar Fuels

Alex Martinson^a^,^b

^aArgonne National Laboratory, 9800 South Cass Ave., Argonne, IL, 60439, United States

^bArgonne-Northwestern Solar Energy Research Center, Northwestern University, United States

Proceedings of International Conference on New Advances in Materials Research for Solar Fuels Production (SolarFuel14)

Montréal, Canada, 2014 June 25th - 26th

Organizer: Thomas Hamann

Invited Speaker, Alex Martinson, presentation 024
Publication date: 16th April 2014

The iron oxides are a family of non-toxic, earth abundant materials with a variety of oxidation states and stoichiometries that exhibit a plethora of useful electronic and magnetic properties. Hematite, α-Fe2O3, in particular is a visible-band gap (2.1 eV) semiconductor with promise for photoelectrochemical water oxidation. However, the randomly oriented polycrystalline films most commonly studied preclude a deeper understanding of charge separation and recombination at grain boundaries, directional transport, and facet-dependent catalysis from precise atomic arrangements. Until now, there has been few reports of iron oxide epitaxy and none on substrates suitable for solar energy applications. Careful atomic layer deposition (ALD) on single crystal substrates allows the first phase-pure isolation of a meta-stable phase. The optoelectronic properties and photoelectrochemical activity of highly oriented films may be investigated as a function of precise atomic ordering at the 100, 110 or 111 plane. The Advanced Photon Source enables phase purity verification to 99% even in ultrathin (10 nm) films. This talk will discuss new routes to and effects of epitaxial iron oxides thin films in the context of solar fuels production.

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