Electronic Excitation and Current Generation in a Heterostructure under the Action of Hydrogen Atoms
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CTURE OF MATTER AND QUANTUM CHEMISTRY
Electronic Excitation and Current Generation in a Heterostructure under the Action of Hydrogen Atoms V. P. Grankin* and D. V. Grankin Pryazovskyi State Technical University, Mariupol, Ukraine *e-mail: [email protected] Received December 20, 2019; revised February 21, 2020; accepted March 10, 2020
Abstract—A theoretical study is performed of the generation of electron-hole pairs in semiconductors under the action of the recombination of hydrogen atoms on their surfaces. The theoretically possible efficiency of converting chemical energy into electrical energy using semiconductor heterostructures is determined. Keywords: surface phenomena, accommodation, hydrogen, hydrogen energy DOI: 10.1134/S0036024420100118
INTRODUCTION Studying processes of the scattering and accommodation of the energy of an exothermic catalytic reaction is an important problem of surface physics and chemistry. The phonon and electron channels are two ways of accommodating the energy of a reaction. In metals, the latter manifests in the generation of highenergy electrons and holes (E = 1–3 eV) that are recorded using a Schottky nanodiode [1]. An exothermic reaction on the surface of a semiconductor leads excites heterogeneous chemiluminescence (HCL) [2] and nonequilibrium chemo effects [3] similar to the ones observed upon photoexcitation. The electronic subsystem in a thus catalyst is a full participant in the relaxation processes inside a gas–surface system, testifying to the possibility of creating current generators with the direct conversion of chemical energy into electrical energy. However, the yield of electronic excitations for known gas–surface systems is negligible, due to Schottky diodes and semiconductor heterostructures still not being considered as possible chemocurrent generators. The dependence of the accommodation rate constant of the energy of a heterogeneous reaction through the electron channel on the energy of an electronic transition in a semiconductor was determined in [4]. This allowed us to calculate the probability of electron chemoexcitation and the efficiency of converting chemical energy into electrical energy using semiconductor heterostructures, which was the aim of this work. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION It is difficult to describe electron processes and electron chemogenesis for most heterogeneous sys-
tems. Ninhaus therefore proposed using the reaction between atomic hydrogen and a surface as a model [1]. The energy released in such a reaction can be dissipated nonadiabatically, resulting in direct excitation of electron-hole (e−−p+) pairs. Figure 1 shows an energy diagram of the creation of e−−p+ pairs and electric current in the structure of a catalyst of the reaction p-type semiconductor–n-type semiconductor. Nonequilibrium electrons in the p-type semiconductor are attracted by the electric field of a p−n transition and fall into the n-region. This results in current (a chemocurrent) flowing through an external conductor and the p−n transition. A kinetic model that de
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