Atomic force microscopy techniques highlighted for solar fuels research

The development of illuminated and operando atomic force microscopy (AFM) techniques has opened door for solar fuels research. Yu et al. present a perspective on the solar fuel applications of illuminated and operando AFM techniques and discuss what the future of the field may look like.

“As photoelectrochemical devices become increasingly sophisticated with nanoscale structures that involve catalysts, semiconductors, protective coatings, and tailored interfaces, understanding the structure-property relationships for these devices proves critical to enable the design of new devices that are efficient, stable and scalable,” said author Weilai Yu.

The perspective goes into detail on advances in AFM techniques that have led to its applications in solar fuels research, such as steady state and dynamic light-induced surface photovoltage measurements, and operando investigations of morphological changes.

The researchers focused on illuminated and operando AFM and emphasized the technique’s abilities to characterize the properties of photoelectrodes in photoelectrochemical devices with nanometer-scale resolution.

“Illuminated and operando techniques could be used to probe catalytic active sites and better understand photogenerated charge separation in semiconductor-catalyst systems,” said author Harold Fu.

According to the authors, future research on the topic might lead to increased stability of photoelectrochemical devices. They believe that AFM could be used to correlate structure-property relationships that may be used to provide insight into overall results for devices such as those based on the tandem monolithic III-V semiconductors.

“The recent integration of illumination sources and AFMs has greatly expanded the toolkit available for characterizing materials for photoelectrochemical devices,” said Fu.

Source: “Atomic force microscopy: Emerging illuminated and operando techniques for solar fuels research,” by Weilai Yu, Harold Fu, Thomas Mueller, Bruce S. Brunschwig, and Nathan S. Lewis, Journal of Chemical Physics (2020). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0009858 .