Photoresponse enhancing in nanostructured WO₃films by slight change in heating ambient

Providing solar hydrogen as a clean energy resource is one of the human challenges for future. Controlling oxygen vacancies as well as surface morphology in metal oxide semiconductors enables developing PEC H₂production in some understood ways. Here, the influence of simple change in annealing atmosphere, air and pure oxygen, on photoresponse of nanocrystalline WO₃has been studied completely. Results revealed that such slight change in annealing procedure increases effective surface interface and donor density by 77 and 72%, respectively. These effects and also retarding recombination of photogenerated electro-hole pair resulted in photocurrent enhancement under solar like illumination more than three times.