Role of thermal annealing in fabrication of bismuth ferrite thin films for photoelectrochemical water splitting
Year: 2023
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: This submission contains the peer-reviewed paper titled "Role of Thermal Annealing in Fabrication of Bismuth Ferrite Thin Films for Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting", published in the special issue of the PARITANTRA Journal of Systems Science and Engineering (Vol. 27, No. 1, May 2023). This research was highly distinguished, receiving the prestigious Best Paper Award for Energy Systems at the 45th (Inter) National Systems Conference (NSC 2022), which was jointly organized by Dayalbagh Educational Institute and the Systems Society of India. The paper provides a simple, cost-effective methodology for fabricating bismuth ferrite thin films and examines how varying sintering temperatures directly impact their structural, optical, and photoelectrochemical performance. The study successfully prepared polycrystalline BiFeO3 thin films on conducting glass substrates via sol-gel spin coating, confirming a rhombohedral phase and a direct bandgap of approximately 2.3 eV that enables efficient visible light absorption. While increasing annealing temperatures from 700°C to 730°C promoted grain growth (increasing crystallite sizes from 31 nm to 44 nm) and film density, the photoelectrochemical measurements revealed that the film annealed at 700°C achieved the highest photocurrent density of 0.22 mA/cm2 at 1 V vs. SCE. This peak performance is attributed to larger remnant polarization and a stronger internal depolarization field at lower annealing temperatures, which significantly enhances charge carrier separation and reduces recombination rates.
Language: English
Field: Energy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7203867997