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Self-gating in semiconductor electrocatalysis

Nature Materials volume 18, pages 1098–1104 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

The semiconductor–electrolyte interface dominates the behaviours of semiconductor electrocatalysis, which has been modelled as a Schottky-analogue junction according to classical electron transfer theories. However, this model cannot be used to explain the extremely high carrier accumulations in ultrathin semiconductor catalysis observed in our work. Inspired by the recently developed ion-controlled electronics, we revisit the semiconductor–electrolyte interface and unravel a universal self-gating phenomenon through microcell-based in situ electronic/electrochemical measurements to clarify the electronic-conduction modulation of semiconductors during the electrocatalytic reaction. We then demonstrate that the type of semiconductor catalyst strongly correlates with their electrocatalysis; that is, n-type semiconductor catalysts favour cathodic reactions such as the hydrogen evolution reaction, p-type ones prefer anodic reactions such as the oxygen evolution reaction and bipolar ones tend to perform both anodic and cathodic reactions. Our study provides new insight into the electronic origin of the semiconductor–electrolyte interface during electrocatalysis, paving the way for designing high-performance semiconductor catalysts.

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Fig. 1: Demonstration of the self-gating phenomenon by in situ electronic/electrochemical measurements.
Fig. 2: Demonstration of the self-gating phenomenon with EIS.
Fig. 3: Self-gating modulated surface conductance of a semiconductor catalyst.
Fig. 4: Correlation of the charge carrier type and the reaction in a semiconductor catalyst.

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by MOE under AcRF Tier 1 (M4011782.070 RG4/17 and M4011993.070 RG7/18), AcRF Tier 2 (2015-T2-2-007, 2016-T2-1-131, 2016-T2-2-153 and 2017-T2-2-136) and AcRF Tier 3 (2018-T3-1-002), and the A*Star QTE programme. This work was also supported by MOE under AcRF Tier 1 (2016-T1-002-051, 2017-T1-001-150 and 2017-T1-002-119) and AcRF Tier 2 (2015-T2-2-057, 2016-T2-2-103 and 2017-T2-1-162), and by NTU under Start-Up Grant M4081296.070.500000 in Singapore. H.Z. acknowledges support from ITC via the Hong Kong Branch of National Precious Metals Material Engineering Research Center and a Start-Up Grant from City University of Hong Kong. The authors acknowledge the Facility for Analysis, Characterization, Testing and Simulation, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore for use of their electron microscopy facilities. Q.J.W. acknowledges the support of the Ministry of Education Singapore Grant (MOE2016-T2-1-128) and National Research Foundation–Competitive Research Program (NRF-CRP18-2017-02). Z.Z. acknowledges the support from NSFC (11772153). Z.W.S. acknowledges support from the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, A*STAR (IMRE/17-1R1211). Work at Rice was supported by the US ARO Grant W911NF-16-1-0255. The authors thank Z.J. Xu for discussions about surface conductance and L. Han, J.R. Galan-Mascaros (Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia) and P. Tang (Catalonia Institute for Energy Research) for discussions about EIS. The authors also thank Y. Liu (Hunan University) for discussions about the semiconductor electronic device and S. Teddy for XPS measurements and data analysis.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Yongmin He, Qiyuan He

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Yongmin He, Qiyuan He, Chao Zhu, Prafful Golani, Xuewen Wang, Qingsheng Zeng, Peng Yu, Shasha Guo, Hua Zhang & Zheng Liu

  2. Center for OptoElectronics and Biophotonics, School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering & The Photonics Institute, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Yongmin He, Xuechao Yu, Caitian Gao & Qi Jie Wang

  3. Department of Materials Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, Houston, TX, USA

    Luqing Wang & Boris I. Yakobson

  4. Institute of Materials Research and Engineering, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore, Singapore

    Albertus D. Handoko & Zhi Wei Seh

  5. Key Laboratory of Mesoscopic Chemistry of MOE, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China

    Mengning Ding

  6. School of Optoelectronic Science and Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China

    Fucai Liu

  7. School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China

    Liang Wang & Minghong Wu

  8. State Key Laboratory of Mechanics and Control of Mechanical Structures, and Institute of Nanoscience, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing, China

    Zhuhua Zhang

  9. CINTRA CNRS/NTU/THALES, Research Techno Plaza, Singapore, Singapore

    Qi Jie Wang & Zheng Liu

  10. Department of Chemistry, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China

    Hua Zhang

  11. School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

    Zheng Liu

  12. Environmental Chemistry and Materials Centre, Nanyang Environment and Water Research Institute, Singapore, Singapore

    Zheng Liu

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  1. Yongmin He
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Contributions

H.Z. and Z.L. guided the project. Y.H. and Q.H. observed the self-gating phenomenon, designed the experiments, fabricated the devices and performed in situ electronic/electrochemical and EIS measurements and analysis. Q.H., Y.H., M.D., C.Z. and S.G. made the microcell set-up. Lu.W., Z.Z. and B.I.Y. performed the first-principle calculations and analysed the simulation data. Y.H., P.G., C.G. and X.W. synthesized single-layer TMD nanosheets. P.Y., Q.Z., F.L., Li.W. and M.W. synthesized TMD crystals. X.Y. synthesized Si nanowires. Z.X., A.D.H. and Z.W.S. analysed the electrochemical results and revised the manuscript. Y.H., Q.H., H.Z. and Z.L. conceived and supervised the experiments. Y.H., Q.H., Q.J.W., H.Z. and Z.L. wrote the paper. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Qi Jie Wang, Hua Zhang or Zheng Liu.

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Supplementary Information

Supplementary methods, Supplementary Figs. 1–25, Supplementary notes 1–6, Supplementary Tables 1–4, Supplementary references 1–152

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He, Y., He, Q., Wang, L. et al. Self-gating in semiconductor electrocatalysis. Nat. Mater. 18, 1098–1104 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-019-0426-0

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