ACHIEVING HIGH-EFFICIENCY PHOTOANODIC BEHAVIOR WITH A LOW-MOBILITY OXIDE, IN2O3

The authors report the solid-state and photoelectrochemical properties of thermally grown and reactively sputtered In2O3 films of mean thickness 2O3 reactively sputtered directly onto Pyrex displayed no detectable photoresponse. Comparison of the morphological, solid-state, optical, and photoelectrochemical properties indicate that there are two sources contributing to the superior behavior of the colloidally rough films over the uniform flat films. The first is an improvement in the solid-state properties of the thermally grown films which gives rise to both a substantial increase in the majority carrier mobility and a much wider space charge region due to a reduced doping density. The second is purely geometrical in nature.