Novel Janus 2D structures of XMoY (X, Y = O, S, Se, Te) composition for solar hydrogen production

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2022.12.286

The successful fabrication of H-phase Janus transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) has received considerable interest due to its great potential in photocatalytic applications. Here, new A′-XMoY (X/Y = O, S, Se, Te) Janus-type structures belonging to the family of TMDs were theoretically investigated for the first time in terms of photocatalytic water splitting via DFT calculations. For all compounds, the Raman spectra were calculated. The SMoO, SeMoO, SMoSe, SMoTe and SeMoTe compounds are dynamically stable and are semiconductors. Among all considered structures SMoTe is the most promising candidate for solar hydrogen production because valence and conduction bands perfectly engulf the redox potentials of water at both neutral and acidic media, opposite to SMoSe, SMoO, SeMoO suitable only in the acidic media, and SeMoTe – in the neutral media. Moreover, A′-SMoTe demonstrates the outstanding values of the solar-to-hydrogen (STH) conversion efficiencies of 54.0 and 67.1 for neutral and acidic media.