Cu2O/ZnO hetero-nanobrush: hierarchical assembly, field emission and photocatalytic properties

Abstract

Zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods are grown hierarchically on cuprous oxide (Cu 2 O) nanoneedles to form a Cu 2 O/ZnO hetero-nanobrush assembly. This increases the overall aspect ratio, which helps to enhance the field emission properties of the system. Also, the charge separation and transport are facilitated because of the multiple p-n junctions formed at p-Cu 2 O/n-ZnO interfaces and quasi-1-D structures of both the materials, respectively. This helps to significantly enhance the photocatalytic properties. As compared to only Cu 2 O nanoneedles, the Cu 2 O/ZnO hetero-nanobrush shows excellent improvement in both field emission and photocatalytic applications.

Ag decorated topological surface state protected hierarchical Bi2Se3nanoflakes for enhanced field emission properties

“…It has been proved by several studies that semiconductor nanostructures of GaS, 32 ZnO, 33 SiC, 34 and CNT 35 show efficient FE behaviors and their turn-on elds strongly depend on aspect ratio. The turn-on eld and threshold eld are dened as the eld required to generate an emission current density of $10 mA cm À2 and $100 mA cm À2 , respectively.…”

Colloidal zinc oxide-copper(I) oxide nanocatalysts for selective aqueous photocatalytic carbon dioxide conversion into methane

“…Zn-Cu oxides are known from their use as photocatalysts for dye degradation 18, 19 . We expect that Zn and Cu oxides will also be an excellent photocatalyst for CO 2 reduction, due to the fact that CO 2 species are readily adsorbed on the surface sites of metal oxides 20, 21 .…”

Enhanced field emission from ZnO nanowire arrays utilizing MgO buffer between seed layer and silicon substrate

“…It is promising for excitonbased applications because of its high exciton binding energy of 60 meV. ZnO nanostructures have also been studied extensively for their great potential in applications in optoelectronic devices [4], field effect transistors [5], waveguides [6], photocatalysis [7], sensors [8], surface acoustic solar cells [9], and field emitters [10]. Among various ZnO nanostructures, vertical one-dimensional (1D) ZnO nanostructures such as nanowire, nanorod and nanotip arrays are expected to act as functional building blocks for future electronics including nanogenerator, field emitter and other nanoscale systems [11].…”