Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting directly converts solar energy into clean and sustainable hydrogen energy, representing a promising and effective technique for solving the world's energy crisis. A hole transfer layer (HTL) plays a vital role for extracting holes from a semiconductor layer to a back electrode in PEC cells for water splitting. In this work, a TiO_x/Sb₂Se₃/NiO_x photocathode was fabricated by using p-NiO_x as HTL. We show that the electrical properties of NiO_x films can be well adjusted by the pulsed laser deposition technique. By systematically adjusting the electrical properties of the NiO_x HTL and passivating the surface defects through coating with the TiO_x layer, we achieved a high photocurrent density of up to −18.08 mA cm⁻² at 0 V vs a reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE), an onset potential of 0.43 V vs RHE, and a half-cell solar to hydrogen conversion efficiency of 1.01% for the TiO_x/Sb₂Se₃/NiO_x photocathode. This work demonstrated NiO_x as a potential hole transport material for a cost-effective Sb₂Se₃ PEC cell.

中文翻译：

---

TiOx/Sb2Se3/p-NiOx光电阴极的制备用于高效光电化学减水

光电化学（PEC）水分解直接将太阳能转化为清洁和可持续的氢能，是解决世界能源危机的一种有前途和有效的技术。空穴传输层 (HTL) 在将空穴从半导体层提取到 PEC 电池的背电极以进行水分解方面起着至关重要的作用。在这项工作中，通过使用 p-NiO _x作为 HTL制造了 TiO _x /Sb ₂ Se ₃ /NiO _x光电阴极。我们表明，可以通过脉冲激光沉积技术很好地调整NiO _x薄膜的电性能。通过系统地调整 NiO _x的电性能HTL 并通过涂覆 TiO _x层钝化表面缺陷，我们在 0 V vs 可逆氢电极 (RHE) 下实现了高达 -18.08 mA cm ^-2的高光电流密度，0.43 V vs RHE 的起始电位， TiO _x /Sb ₂ Se ₃ /NiO _x光电阴极的半电池太阳能到氢的转换效率为1.01% 。这项工作证明了 NiO _x作为具有成本效益的 Sb ₂ Se ₃ PEC 电池的潜在空穴传输材料。