Effects of Urea as an Additive in Fe2O3 Thin‑Film Photoelectrodes

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

In this study, an Fe2O3photoelectrode was grown on a fluorine-doped tin oxide substrate via microwave chemical bath deposition.
We added various amounts of urea as an additive to the FeCl3precursor for the fabrication of the Fe2O3photoelectrodeand investigated the effects of the concentration of the urea additive on the morphological, optical, structural, electrical,and photoelectrochemical properties of this photoelectrode. Among the different concentrations evaluated, the maximumphotocurrent density (0.51 mA/cm2 at 0.6 V vs. SCE) was obtained using 0.05 M urea, as the resulting electrode had thegreatest thickness, highest flat-band potential, and preferential growth along the (110) plane along with favorable electrontransport characteristics. The maximum photocurrent density of the sample prepared with 0.05 M urea was approximately60% greater than that obtained from the sample prepared in the absence of urea. This study showed that the photoelectrochemicalproperties of the Fe2O3photoelectrode were substantially influenced by the changes in the morphological, optical,structural, and electrical properties caused by the addition of urea.

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