The pyrite iron disulfide thin films are regarded as suitable candidates for construction of low-cost photoelectrochemical (PEC) solar cells. Iron oxide hematite has attracted much attention as possibly convenient material for hydrogen production via PEC water splitting. We refer on preparation of pyrite thin films via thermal sulfidation of hematite films synthetized by a physical methodology of high power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS) and purely chemical approach of sol-gel. We studied for the first time the correlation between PEC functionality of hematite films and after their sulfidation into pyrite. The highest PEC activity of hematite films of 560 μA cm⁻² at 700 mV vs. Ag/AgCl was achieved with the HiPIMS photoelectrodes. The photoefficiency dropped dramatically to 4 μA cm⁻² at 600 mV vs. Ag/AgCl after the sulfidation. A significant increase of grains‘ size, residual unreacted hematite, surface defects were the main reasons for the poor photoactivity. The sol-gel produced hematite yielded photocurrent of 30 μA cm⁻² and a slight increase to 40 μA cm⁻² (recorded at 500 mV vs. Ag/AgCl) of the corresponding pyrite version. Both these electrodes showed also similar morphological characteristics. The structural, electronic and optical properties of the deposited films were determined using various methods e.g. Raman spectroscopy, SEM, and PDS.

黄铁矿二硫化铁薄膜被认为是构建低成本光电化学（PEC）太阳能电池的合适候选材料。氧化铁赤铁矿作为通过PEC分解水制氢的可能方便材料受到了广泛的关注。我们参考了通过高功率脉冲磁控溅射（HiPIMS）的物理方法和溶胶-凝胶的纯化学方法合成的赤铁矿薄膜的热硫化制备黄铁矿薄膜的方法。我们首次研究了赤铁矿薄膜的PEC官能度与硫化成黄铁矿后的PEC官能度之间的相关性。使用HiPIMS光电极，在700 mV的条件下，相对于Ag / AgCl，获得了560μAcm ^-2的赤铁矿膜的最高PEC活性。光效率急剧下降至4μAcm ^-2硫化后，相对于Ag / AgCl在600 mV下。晶粒尺寸的显着增加，残留的未反应的赤铁矿，表面缺陷是光敏性差的主要原因。溶胶-凝胶产生的赤铁矿产生的光电流为30μAcm ^-2，并且相应黄铁矿形式的光电流略有增加至40μAcm ^-2（在500 mV相对于Ag / AgCl的情况下记录）。这些电极都显示出相似的形态特征。使用各种方法（例如拉曼光谱法，SEM和PDS）确定沉积膜的结构，电子和光学性质。