Metal Oxide Nanostructures: Growth and Applications

Abstract

This chapter provides a comprehensive review of metal oxide nanostructures, their growth and applications. These metal oxides are important transparent conducting materials that have drawn great attention in the scientific community owing to their high optical transparency (*85-95 %) in the visible region of spectrum along with high electrical conductivity (10 3 -10 4 Ω −1 cm −1 ). The combination of these properties make these materials suitable for many technological applications in solar cells, heat mirrors, transparent conducting electrodes, display devices and light emitting diodes. The metal oxide nanostructures, particularly nanowires and nanotubes, have also drawn considerable research interest as sensor material because of their high surface-to-volume ratio and suitable surface chemistry for verities of sensor applications. This has opened up potential applications of these materials in the area of environment control devices with high sensing response, low detection limit, low power consumption and high compatibility with microelectronic processing for IC's. Thus, 1-D metal oxide nanostructures have proven to be the most promising interface for communicating with the outer world. Different growth techniques and various growth models have been discussed for the growth of nanowires, metal-filled nanotubes, octahedrons and nanoflute structures. The article concludes with a glimpse of some recent work based on metal oxide photodetector especially in deep ultraviolet region (DUV) (<280 nm) which would provide futuristic application in optical switching, single photon detection and communication.

Preparation, Characterization, and Evaluation of Humidity-Dependent Electrical Properties of Undoped and Niobium Oxide-Doped TiO2 : WO3 Mixed Powders

“…e development of new ceramic metal oxide materials provides a promising platform for diverse applications such as optoelectronics, microelectronics, dye-sensitized solar cells, and tunneling devices [1][2][3].…”

Enhanced Electroactivity of Facet-Controlled Co3O4 Nanocrystals for Enzymeless Biosensing

“…1(b), the strong band at 655 cm -1 in the FTIR spectra is the characteristic Co-O vibration in Co 3 O 4 [10] . There is no other characteristic feature in the range between 1000 cm -1 to 3500 cm -1 , suggesting that impurities such as Co(OH) 2 and CoOOH were not present in the sample [11] . Moreover, we studied the chemical [12,13] .…”

“…Transition metal oxides have recently received much attention for their interesting material properties in a broad range of applications [1,2] . In particular, the facet-dependent property is among the most exciting aspect of the research because the activity of an inactive material may be remarkably enhanced by revealing highly active facets without changing the composition [1,3] .…”

Influence of Biofield Treatment on Physical and Structural Characteristics of Barium Oxide and Zinc Sulfide

“…Metal oxides and sulfides are considered as one of interesting class of ceramics due to their versatile applications [1][2][3][4][5]. Zinc sulfide (ZnS) and barium oxide (BaO) gain attention among the researchers due to their unique optical and electrical properties and wide applications in electrical industries.…”

“…This is a cleaner and efficient way to generate electricity from coal reserves. Further, the BaO is hygroscopic in nature which enables it to use for chemical reactions on anode surface [1]. ZnS possess a particular place due to its application as wide band gap semiconductors, blue light emitting diodes (LEDs), and electroluminescent devices [7][8][9].…”