Gallium nitride nanowire as a linker of molybdenum sulfides and silicon for photoelectrocatalytic water splitting

The combination of earth-abundant catalysts and semiconductors, for example, molybdenum sulfides and planar silicon, presents a promising avenue for the large-scale conversion of solar energy to hydrogen. The inferior interface between molybdenum sulfides and planar silicon, however, severely suppresses charge carrier extraction, thus limiting the performance. Here, we demonstrate that defect-free gallium nitride nanowire is ideally used as a linker of planar silicon and molybdenum sulfides to produce a high-quality shell-core heterostructure. Theoretical calculations revealed that the unique electronic interaction and the excellent geometric-matching structure between gallium nitride and molybdenum sulfides enabled an ideal electron-migration channel for high charge carrier extraction efficiency, leading to outstanding performance. A benchmarking current density of 40 ± 1 mA cm−2 at 0 V vs. reversible hydrogen electrode, the highest value ever reported for a planar silicon electrode without noble metals, and a large onset potential of +0.4 V were achieved under standard one-sun illumination.