Surface plasmon-driven photoelectrochemical water splitting of aligned ZnO nanorod arrays decorated with loading-controllable Au nanoparticles

In this paper, we designed a series of well-aligned ZnO nanorod arrays decorated with loading-controllable Au nanoparticles and studied their surface plasmon-driven photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting performances. The PEC water splitting ability of Au-ZnO nanorod arrays was evaluated under illumination with λ > 420 nm light. These nanorod arrays show remarkable PEC water splitting performances and achieve the highest photocurrent density of 30 μA cm−2 at 0.8 V versus Ag/AgCl. Furthermore, the PEC performance for heterogenous nanorod arrays can be effectively adjusted by controlling loading amounts of Au nanoparticles. We experimentally demonstrate that the Au-ZnO nanorod arrays show enhanced visible light absorption ability. The superior PEC performance of Au-ZnO nanorod arrays is attributed to the synergistic effects of plasmonic Au nanoparticles, ZnO semiconductor and Schottky barrier built in heterogenous nanorod array. This work provides a facile strategy to manipulate the PEC water splitting activity of Au-ZnO hybrid nanostructures by simply controlling the loading amounts of metallic Au nanoparticles. Furthermore, our research offers a potentially efficient strategy for the design and fabrication of new types of plasmonic-metal/semiconductor hybrid nanostructures with a plasmonic-enhanced PEC water splitting activity under the visible light, which are as valuable photocatalysts for solar-to-chemical/electrical energy conversion. •Au-ZnO nanorod arrays with loading-controllable Au nanoparticles were fabricated.•Au-ZnO nanorod arrays were applied as photoanodes for PEC water splitting.•Au-ZnO nanorod arrays show remarkable visible-light PEC water splitting activity.•Visible light PEC water splitting is attributed to SPR-mediated electron transfer.