Surface Coated nanowires for efficient energy conversion

Abstract

Nanowire has been of considerable interest in past decade due to its novel properties and applications in electronics and photonics etc. Zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowire is a wide band gap semiconductor material which is used for energy harvesting, sensing, optoelectronic and electronic applications. We have synthesized gold coated ZnO NWs by hydrothermal technique onto ZnO seed layer coated Si substrates and subsequent depositon of gold. The ZnO NWs were vertically well aligned and the gold nanoparticles are uniformly deposited onto the surface of ZnO NWs, as confirmed by SEM and TEM. The properly designed ZnO NWs coated with gold (Au) nanoparticles have shown increased absorption of light and Raman scattering which can be used for efficient energy conversion in photoelectrochemical properties, DSSC and hybrid solar cells.