Synthesis and assembly of 1D semiconductor for s

Synthesis and assembly of 1D semiconductor for solar energy conversion

Xinjian Feng


Oriented assembled 3D branched nanowire arrays produce electrodes with high surface area and rapid charge transport, and show effective charge collection for solar cells and energy storage devices.

17 December 2014, SPIE Newsroom. DOI: 10.1117/2.1201412.005702




Over the last few decades, there has been increasing interest in low-cost nanomaterials for novel designs of electrodes for solar cells, artificial photosynthesis, and energy storage. Effective charge collection in these devices requires both high surface area and rapid charge transport in electrodes. When fabricated from small building blocks (such as nanoparticles, NPs), they provide the desired highly accessible surfaces, but NPs offer only low charge mobility. Highly dense grain boundaries and long charge paths (resulting from the electrons' random walk through the mesoporous electrode) reduce electron mobility in an NP film by about five orders of magnitude compared with a single crystal.



http://spie.org/x111875.xml?highlight=x2400&a...d=KNRNANOE