Hysterisis curve

The Effect of Illumination. In an alkaline solution, an n-GaP electrode, (111) surface, under illumination shows an anodic photocurrent, accompanied by quantitative dissolution of the electrode. The current-potential curve shows considerable hysterisis as seen in Fig. 2 the anodic current, scanned backward, (toward less positive potential) begins to decrease at a potential much more positive than the onset potential of the anodic current for the forward scanning, the latter being slightly more positive than the Ug value in the dark, Us(dark). 

Let us consider, for example, the simple nernstian reduction reaction in Eq. (221) and a solution containing initially only the reactant R. Before any electrochemical perturbation the electrode rest potential Ej is made largely positive to E . At time zero the potential is stepped to a value E2, sufficiently negative to E , so that the concentration of R is close to zero at the electrode surface. After a time 6, the electrode potential is stepped back to El, so that the concentration of P at the electrode surface becomes zero. When this potentiostatic perturbation, represented in Fig. 21a, is applied in a steady-state method, the R and P concentration profiles are linear and depend only on the electrode potential but not on time, as shown in Fig. 20a (for k 0). Yet when the same perturbation is applied in transient methods, the concentration profiles are curved and time dependent, as evidenced in Fig. 21b. Thus it is seen from this figure that a step duration at Ei, much longer than the step duration 0 at E2, is needed for the initial concentration profiles to be restored. This hysterisis corresponds to the propagation of the diffusion perturbation within the solution, which then keeps a memory of the past perturbation. This information is stored via the structuring of the concentrations in the space near the electrode as a function of the elapsed time. 

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