Nucleació i passivació de fotocàtodes de Cu₂O per a la producció fotoelectroquímica d'hidrogen

Abstract

Cu2O is a promising low-cost, p-type semiconductor for photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting, but its performance is highly sensitive to film morphology and remains limited by photocorrosion. This work investigates whether introducing a seed layer prior to Cu2O electrodeposition on FTO substrates improves film quality and PEC performance, and how this effect depends on deposition time (15, 30, 45 and 60 min). All samples were protected with a thin carbon layer to mitigate photocorrosion. Cu2O films were characterized structurally and optically, and their PEC behaviour was assessed through linear sweep voltammetry, pulsed chronoamperometry and incident photon-to-current efficiency (IPCE) measurements. The results position the seed layer as a simple, low-cost strategy to improve Cu2O photocathodes, provided it is combined with a suitably tuned deposition time