Solar photoelectrochemical water splitting is a potential pathway for large-scale renewable fuel generation with minimum carbon footprint. It utilizes semiconductors to absorb photons and generate charge carriers for redox processes leading to hydrogen and oxygen evolution. A major challenge is the scarcity of materials satisfying all the criteria associated with efficiency, cost, scalability and stability. A few of the recently emerged 0 and 2D semiconductors have demonstrated remarkable ability to form heterostructures with unique properties for addressing these issues. In this presentation, these structures exhibiting quantum size effects and the advancements in the field are discussed.
A magnetically-driven method for controlling nano- dimensional porosity in sol gel derived metal oxide films, including TiO2, Al2O3, and SnO2, coated onto ferromagnetic amorphous substrates, such as the magnetically-soft Metglas alloys, is described. Based on the porous structures observed dependence on external magnetic field, a model is suggested to explain the phenomena. Under well-defined conditions it appears that the sol particles coming out of solution, and undergoing Brownian motion, follow the magnetic field lines oriented perpendicularly to the substrate surface associated with the magnetic domain walls of the substrate; hence the porosity developed during solvent evaporation correlates with the magnetic domain size.
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