Incidence Dependency of Photonic Crystal Substrate and Its Application on Solar Energy Conversion: Ag2S Sensitized WO3 in FTO Photonic Crystal Film

In addition to the most common applications of macroporous film: Supplying a large surface area, PC-FTO (macroporous fluorine-doped tin oxide with photonic crystal structure) can be employed as a template to control the morphologies of WO3 for exposing a more active facet, and enhance the overall photo-electron conversion efficiency for the embedded photoactive materials under changing illumination incidence through refracting and scattering. The optical features of PC-FTO film was demonstrated by DRUVS (diffuse reflectance UV-vis spectra). Plate-like WO3 were directly synthesized inside the PC-FTO film as a control group photoanode, Ag2S quantum dots were subsequently decorated on WO3 to tune the light absorption range. The impact of photonic crystal film on the photoactivity of Ag2S/WO3 was demonstrated by using the photoelectrochemical current density as a function of the incidence of the simulated light source.