New aspects of improving the performance of WO ₃ thin films for photoelectrochemical water splitting by tuning the ultrathin depletion region

In this work, we explored a facile, scalable and effective method for substantially enhancing photocurrent and incident-photon-to-current efficiency of WO ₃ thin-film photoanodes by a mild reduction treatment under low oxygen pressure. Experimental data from photoelectrochemical and electrochemical impedance spectroscopies have shown that such treatment can increase the charge carrier density on WO ₃ photoanode surfaces resulting in improvements in hole collection efficiency and reduction in charge recombination. Despite a much thinner layer of WO ₃ (about 500 nm) compared to those in other published studies, the electrodes exhibited an ultra-high photocurrent density of 1.81 mA cm ⁻² at 1.23 V vs. RHE. This current density is one of the highest ones among WO ₃ -based photoanodes described in literature. The proposed surface modulation approach offers an effective and scalable method to prepare high-performance thin film photoanodes for photoelectrochemical water splitting.