Synthesis and characterization of ZnO-Cu₂O core shell nanowires for solar energy applications /
تحضير وتوصف اسلاك نانوة من أكسد الزنك -أكسد النحاس لتطبقات الخلاا الشمسة
Alaa yahia faid ; Supervised Saad.M. Elraghy , Randa Abdelkarim
- Cairo : Alaa yahia faid , 2016
- 97 P. : charts , facsimiles ; 30cm
Thesis (M.Sc.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Engineering - Department of Metallurgical Engineering
Research into nanomaterials has become more and more popular because of their unique properties compared to bulk materials. Amongst various functional materials, zinc oxide (ZnO), with a direct electron energy band gap of 3.34 eV at room temperature, is an important optoelectronic material with an intrinsically n-type semiconducting property. However, to form a p-type ZnO semiconductor is still a challenge. Copper oxide , compared to ZnO, has a much smaller band gap, 1.2 eV, and shows an intrinsically p-type semiconducting property. It has been suggested that when Cu₂O is alloyed with ZnO properly, a p-n semiconductor heterojunction can be formed to be utilized in solar cell and gas sensor applications. In this thesis, ZnO/Cu₂O core-shell nanowire arrays have been successfully fabricated by a simple two-step process. ZnO nanowire arrays were first grown by the anodization method using Zn foil substrates. Copper then was deposited on as-grown ZnO nanowire arrays by chemical bath deposition method. ZnO/Cu₂O core-shell nanowire arrays have exhibited better photoelectrochemical efficiency in visible region as compared to the pure ZnO nanowire arrays, which suggests that ZnO/Cu₂O core-shell nanowire arrays have strong potential as nanoscale building blocks in solar cells and light emission devices