Nanostructure designs for effective solar-to-hydrogen conversion

Conversion of energy from photons in sunlight to hydrogen through solar splitting of water is an important technology. The rising significance of producing hydrogen from solar light via water splitting has motivated a surge of developing semiconductor solar-active nanostructures as photocatalysts and photoelectrodes. Traditional strategies have been developed to enhance solar light absorption (e.g., ion doping, solid solution, narrow-band-gap semiconductor or dye sensitization) and improve charge separation/transport to prompt surface reaction kinetics (e.g., semiconductor combination, co-catalyst loading, nanostructure design) for better utilizing solar energy. However, the solar-to-hydrogen efficiency is still limited. This article provides an overview of recently demonstrated novel concepts of nanostructure designs for efficient solar hydrogen conversion, which include surface engineering, novel nanostructured heterojunctions, and photonic crystals. Those first results outlined in the main text encouragingly point out the prominence and promise of these new concepts principled for designing high-efficiency electronic and photonic nanostructures that could serve for sustainable solar hydrogen production.