Oxide and Oxynitride Materials for Direct Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting Using Visible Light

The vast majority of materials discovered to be capable of direct photoelectrochemical water splitting can only due so using ultraviolet light due to their large band gaps (> 3 eV), far larger than the thermodynamic potential for this reaction (1.23 v). Our recent progress in designing, discovering and optimizing both oxynitride and pure oxide materials capable of direct water splitting using visible light (2.5 - 3.0 eV) will be discussed.