Fully Textured Monolithic Sb <sub>2</sub> S <sub>3</sub> /Silicon Tandem for Unbiased and Stable Solar‐Driven Water Splitting Paired with Iodide Oxidation Reaction
ABSTRACT Solar‐driven photoelectrochemical (PEC) production of chemical fuels such as hydrogen is a viable solution to address climate neutrality objectives. Development of a monolithic tandem PEC device consisting of ideal bandgap absorbers is of paramount importance to realize efficient artificial photosynthesis systems. Herein, we report monolithic integration of Sb 2 S 3 on textured silicon to realize a completely inorganic and fully vacuum processed multilayer PEC device with Ag/Indium Tin Oxide (ITO)/Heterojunction with Intrinsic Thin layer (HIT) Si/ITO/Au/Sb 2 S 3 /NiO x architecture. Photoelectron spectroscopy and computational analysis show a staggered band alignment between Si and Sb 2 S 3 , emulating Z‐scheme charge transfer mechanism. We demonstrate a high performing and stable Sb 2 S 3 ‐Si monolithic tandem for PEC hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) coupled to iodide oxidation reaction (IOR). Under AM 1.5G illumination, the Sb 2 S 3 ‐Si monolithic tandem device achieves unassisted photocurrent density of 4.38 mA cm − 2 with faradaic efficiency of 97% for hydrogen, while maintaining ∼90% of its initial performance after 10 h of continuous operation. These results set a new benchmark for all inorganic monolithic tandems for efficient and sustainable solar‐to‐chemical conversion. This work unlocks the pathway for artificial photosynthesis systems comprising ideal bandgap photo absorbers.
Authors
- Joke Hadermann (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1756-2566)
- Tom Aernouts (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3004-6080)
- Sepideh Rahimisheikh (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5011-4474)
- Sudhanshu Shukla (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8233-6963)
- Jihong Min (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5788-1473)
- Devika Rajagopal
- Tom Hauffman (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3456-0271)
- Beatriz de la Fuente (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9045-3481)
- Irene Dei Tos
- Bart Vermang
- David Beljonne (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5082-9990)
- Byungha Shin (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6845-0305)
- Jan D'Haen
- David Cornil
Institutions
- University of Mons (BE)
- Vrije Universiteit Brussel (BE)
- University of Antwerp (BE)
- Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KR)
- Imec the Netherlands (NL)
- Directorate-General for Energy (BE)
- IMEC (BE)
- Province of Antwerp (BE)
- Hasselt University (BE)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Advanced Science
- Published
- 2026-05-22
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.75798
- Primary Topic
- Advanced Photocatalysis Techniques
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00
Funders
- Fonds De La Recherche Scientifique - FNRS
- Ministry of Strategy and Finance