The growth of hematite by electrochemical deposition for PEC applications

Highlights: • Hematite was grown on FTO substrate using electrochemical deposition. • We studied the effects of growth temperature, potential and growth duration. • Photocurrent density value was closely related with structural properties. - Abstract: We studied the growth of hematite (α-Fe₂O₃) by electrochemical deposition and analyzed its structural, optical, and photoelectrochemical (PEC) properties. The hematite was synthesized under different growth temperatures, potentials, and growth durations. All of the samples were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), UV–visible spectroscopy, and X-ray diffraction (XRD) to determine their morphological, optical and structural properties, respectively. In addition, the PEC properties were measured by an electrochemical potentiostat and xenon lamp (1 sun condition with AM 1.5 filter). In this study, the hematite exhibited a maximum photocurrent of 354 μA cm⁻² before a dark current arises at 0.557 V vs. saturated calomel electrode (SCE) under 70 °C, −0.25 V, and 10 min test conditions. In regards to the optical and morphological properties, hematite exhibits proper optical band gap energy value under 70 °C, −0.25 V, and 10 min test conditions. In addition, the resulting photocurrent density of the hematite exhibited a strong relation with its structural properties