2021/12/09 by Qing Qu, Bin Liu, Qu, Qing +7
Energy · Materials Science · #Advanced Photocatalysis Techniques #Catalytic Processes in Materials Science #Electrocatalysts for Energy Conversion #FOS: Physical sciences #Hydrogen Storage and Materials #Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2112.04753
openalex publication_date 2021/12/09 · openalex created_date 2022/05/05 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Recently, topological quantum materials have emerged as a promising\nelectrocatalyst for hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). However, most of their\nperformance largely lags behind noble metals such as benchmark platinum (Pt).\nIn this work, a Pd(20nm)/SnTe(70nm) heterostructure, fabricated by molecular\nbeam epitaxy and electron beam evaporation, is found to display much higher\nelectrocatalytic activity than that of a pure Pd(20nm) thin film and even\nhigher than that of a commercial Pt foil. This heterostructure adopts an\nextracted turnover frequency value more than two times higher than that of the\nPd(20nm) thin film at a potential of 0.2 V, indicating a much higher intrinsic\nactivity per Pd site. Density functional theory calculations show that the\nconventional d-band theory, which works well for many transition metal\nheterostructures, cannot explain the enhancement of electrocatalytic\nperformance. Instead, we found that the topological surface states (TSSs) of\nthe SnTe (001) underlayer play a key role; electrons transfer from both the Pd\nsurface and the adsorbed H atoms to the TSSs of SnTe (001), resulting in weaker\nPd-H binding strength and more favorable hydrogen adsorption free energies. Our\nwork demonstrates for the first time that a metal/topological quantum material\nheterostructure could be a prominent catalyst to enjoy HER activity\noutperforming that of a commercial Pt foil and offers a promising direction to\noptimize the performance of electrocatalysts based on topological quantum\nmaterials.\n