he grant provides funding to develop novel processing techniques for seedless growth of transparent conducting oxide nanowires and selective coating of nanowires with multiple kinds of semiconductor nanoparticles. We will probe to uncover the mechanism responsible for the heterogeneous nucleation of the nanowires on the oxide layer. The composition and thickness of the thin oxide layer will be controlled to facilitate the nucleation and growth of the oxide nanowires. On the surface of the nanowires, semiconductor nanoparticles will be selectively positioned by a modified electrodeposition process. The location of different semiconductor nanoparticle layers will be determined by their light absorption spectrum. Nanoparticles absorbing the light with longer wavelength will be placed to be close to the bottom of the nanowires to harvest all of visible light spectrum. These hybrid nanowire arrays will be characterized using electrical, optical, and chemical methods.
If successful, the expected outcomes of this research will lead to inorganic composite arrays that will harvest all visible components of incoming solar light. Multilayer semiconductor nanoparticle arrays will make the light absorption spectrum of the composite arrays much broader than that of current semiconductor materials. Moreover, the proposed research will deliver a comprehensive understanding of carrier loss mechanisms at various surfaces and interfaces for better electronic conduction. A combination of panchromatic light absorption capability and fast carrier transport will contribute to manufacturing high performance photoelectrochemical cells. The broader impact of the research lies in its potential to provide the highly efficient energy conversion and storage devices using a low cost and continuous manufacturing process. This will take us one step closer toward realizing the development of fully integrated complex hybrid, flexible electronic systems for many applications such as healthcare and environmental monitoring.
