Mixed-Metal Tungsten Oxide Photoanode Materials Made by Pulsed-Laser in Liquids Synthesis.

Globally scalable sunlight-driven devices that convert solar energy into storable fuels will require efficient light absorbers that are made of non-precious elements. Suitable photoanode materials are yet to be discovered. Here we utilised the timesaving nature of pulsed-laser-in-liquids synthesis and prepared a series of neat and mixed-metal tungsten oxide photoanode materials to investigate the effect of ad-metals on optical and photocurrent generation properties. We obtained sub-μm-sized materials with different colours from W, Al, Ta, or first-row transition metal targets in water or aqueous ammonium metatungstate solutions. We observed metastable polymorphs of WO