Defect Investigation on Hematite Photoanodes

Abstract

Efforts to improve the efficiency of photoelectrocatalytic reactions on hematite photoanodes routinely focus on the analysis of photophysics, or on the fabrication of complex material architectures. The discontinuity of experimental results and mechanistic proposals found across the literature, however, reflect a lack of control over detailed structural features. This thesis aims to analyze specific types of structural defects and correlate their presence to photoelectrocatalytic behavior parameters. Following this strategy, we successfully identify coexistent defects in hematite photoanodes. This finding provides a means to rapidly diagnose a specific structural defect with Raman spectroscopy and will aid in the optimization of fabrication protocols for hematite photoanodes.