Fabrication of Au nanoprisms/p-GaN for hot hole collection and hydrogen evolution reaction

Abstract

For hot hole collection in photoelectrochemical system, Au nanoprism/ p-GaN was fabricated. Although the efficiency of the incident photon to current efficiency was increased compared to Au nanoparticles/GaN that previously used, the efficiency of hot holes was still much lower than that of hot electrons. When light was given, it was confirmed that hydrogen evolution reaction increased with decreasing the size of Au nanoprisms. The physical and electrical characteristics of the photocathode were verified by using scanning electron microscope and atomic force microscope. Similar levels of dark and photocurrents in the photoelectrochemical system were obtained. Therefore, further study is needed to eliminate dark currents in order to measure the incident photon to current effciency more accurate.