Reliable control in the crystal quality of synthesized III-V nanowires (NWs) is particularly important to manipulate their corresponding electronic transport properties for technological applications. In this report, a "two-step" growth process is adopted to achieve single-crystalline GaAs NWs, where an initial high-temperature nucleation process is employed to ensure the formation of high Ga supersaturated Au7Ga3 and Au2Ga alloy seeds, instead of the low Ga supersaturated Au7Ga2 seeds observed in the conventional "single-step" growth. These two-step NWs are long (>60 μm) and thick (>80 nm) with the minimal defect concentrations and uniform growth orientations. Importantly, these NWs exhibit p-type conductivity as compared to the single-step grown n-type NWs for the same diameter range. This NW conductivity difference (p- versus n-channel) is shown to originate from the donor-like crystal defects, such as As precipitates, induced by the low Ga supersaturated multicrystalline Au7Ga2 alloy seeds. Then the well-controlled crystal quality for desired electronic properties is further explored in the application of large-scale p-type GaAs NW parallel array FETs as well as the integration of both p- and n-type GaAs NWs into CMOS inverters. All these illustrate the successful control of NW crystal defects and corresponding electronic transport properties via the manipulation of Ga supersaturation in the catalytic alloy tips with different preparation methods. The understanding of this relationship between NW crystal quality and electronic transport properties is critical and preferential to the future development of nanoelectronic materials, circuit design, and fabrication.

In this paper, we demonstrated direct formation of large area Cu(In,Ga)Se(2) nanotip arrays (CIGS NTRs) by using one step Ar(+) milling process without template. By controlling milling time and incident angles, the length of CIGS NTRs with adjustable tilting orientations can be precisely controlled. Formation criteria of these CIGS NTRs have been discussed in terms of surface curvature, multiple components, and crystal quality, resulting in a highly anisotropic milling effect. The CIGS NTRs have very low reflectance <0.1% at incident wavelengths between 300 to 1200 nm. Open circuit voltage and short circuit current of CIGS NTRs solar cell were measured to be ∼390 mV and ∼22.56 mA/cm(2), yielding the filling factor and the efficiency of 59 and 5.2%, respectively. In contrast to CIGS thin film solar cell with efficiency of 3.2%, the nanostructured CIGS NTRs can have efficiency enhancement of ∼160% due to the higher light absorption ability because of the nanostructure. The merits of current approach include the latest way via template-free direct creating process of nanostructured CIGS NTRs with controllable dimensionality and large scale production without postselenization process.

InP NWs have been extensively explored for next-generation electronic and optoelectronic devices due to their excellent carrier mobility, exciton lifetime and wave-guiding characteristics. Typically, those NWs are grown epitaxially on crystalline substrates which could limit their potential applications requiring high growth yield to be printable or transferable on amorphous and flexible substrates. Here, utilizing Au as catalytic seeds, we successfully demonstrate the synthesis of crystalline, stoichiometric and dense InP NWs on amorphous substrates. Notably, the NWs are found to grow via the vaporliquid-solid (VLS) mechanism with a narrow distribution of diameter (34.6 AE 7.7 nm) uniformly along the entire NW length (>10 mm). Although the grown NWs possess a substantial amount of twin defects, the fabricated NW FETs still exhibit impressive electrical performance with high carrier mobility ($350 cm 2 V À1 s À1 ) and I ON /I OFF ratio ($10 6 ). All these have demonstrated the promising potency of such NWs grown on amorphous substrates for technological applications, as compared to the conventional MBE or MOCVD grown InP NWs.

We have successfully demonstrated a great advantage of plasmonic Au nanoparticles for efficient enhancement of Cu(In,Ga)Se2(CIGS) flexible photovoltaic devices. The incorporation of Au NPs can eliminate obstacles in the way of developing ink-printing CIGS flexible thin film photovoltaics (TFPV), such as poor absorption at wavelengths in the high intensity region of solar spectrum, and that occurs significantly at large incident angle of solar irradiation. The enhancement of external quantum efficiency and photocurrent have been systematically analyzed via the calculated electromagnetic field distribution. Finally, the major benefits of the localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPR) in visible wavelength have been investigated by ultrabroadband pump-probe spectroscopy, providing a solid evidence on the strong absorption and reduction of surface recombination that increases electron-hole generation and improves the carrier transportation in the vicinity of pn-juction.

We present systematic works in characterization of CIGS nanotip arrays (CIGS NTRs). CIGS NTRs are obtained by a one-step ion-milling process by a direct-sputtering process of CIGS thin films (CIGS TF) without a postselenization process. At the surface of CIGS NTRs, a region extending to 100 nm in depth with a lower copper concentration compared to that of CIGS TF has been discovered. After KCN washing, removal of secondary phases can be achieved and a layer with abundant copper vacancy (V(Cu)) was left. Such compositional changes can be a benefit for a CIGS solar cell by promoting formation of Cd-occupied Cu sites (Cd(Cu)) at the CdS/CIGS interface and creates a type-inversion layer to enhance interface passivation and carrier extraction. The raised V(Cu) concentration and enhanced Cd diffusion in CIGS NTRs have been verified by energy dispersive spectrometry. Strengthened adhesion of Al:ZnO (AZO) thin film on CIGS NTRs capped with CdS has also been observed in SEM images and can explain the suppressed series resistance of the device with CIGS NTRs. Those improvements in electrical characteristics are the main factors for efficiency enhancement rather than antireflection.