Polarized Raman spectra and corresponding Raman scattering intensity images of an isolated gallium nitride nanowire with a diameter of 170 nm are presented. The sensitivity of the confocal microscope combined with a high-resolution piezoelectric stage enables analysis of the crystalline phase and crystallographic orientation of an individual nanowire with an excellent spatial and spectral resol...

The piezo-phototronic effect is about the use of the inner crystal piezoelectric potential to tune/control charge carrier generation, separation, transport and/or recombination in optoelectronic devices. In this paper, a theoretical model for describing the characteristics of a metal-nanowire-metal structured piezo-phototronic photodetector is constructed. Numerical simulations fit well to the ...

We have converted nanoscale mechanical energy into electrical energy by means of piezoelectric zinc oxide nanowire (NW) arrays. The aligned NWs are deflected with a conductive atomic force microscope tip in contact mode. The coupling of piezoelectric and semiconducting properties in zinc oxide creates a strain field and charge separation across the NW as a result of its bending. The rectifying ...

Using a two-end bonded ZnO piezoelectric-fine-wire (PFW) (nanowire, microwire) on a flexible polymer substrate, the strain-induced change in I-V transport characteristic from symmetric to diode-type has been observed. This phenomenon is attributed to the asymmetric change in Schottky-barrier heights at both source and drain electrodes as caused by the strain-induced piezoelectric potential-drop...

Utilizing the coupled piezoelectric and semiconducting dual properties of ZnO, we demonstrate a piezoelectric field effect transistor (PE-FET) that is composed of a ZnO nanowire (NW) (or nanobelt) bridging across two Ohmic contacts, in which the source to drain current is controlled by the bending of the NW. A possible mechanism for the PE-FET is suggested to be associated with the carrier trap...

In this paper, a numerical solution procedure is presented for the free and forced vibration of a piezoelectric nanowire under thermo-electro-mechanical loads based on the nonlocal elasticity theory within the framework of Timoshenko beam theory. The influences of surface piezoelectricity, surface elasticity and residual surface stress are taken into consideration. Using Hamilton’s principle, t...

We utilize classical molecular dynamics to study surface effects on the piezoelectric properties of ZnO nanowires as calculated under uniaxial loading. An important point to our work is that we have utilized two types of surface treatments, those of charge compensation and surface passivation, to eliminate the polarization divergence that otherwise occurs due to the polar (0001) surfaces of ZnO...

The piezo-phototronic effect is about the enhanced separation, transport, and recombination of the photogenerated carriers using the piezoelectric polarization charges present in piezoelectric-semiconductor materials. Here, it is presented that the piezo-phototronic effect can be effectively applied to improve the relative conversion efficiency of a flexible solar cell based on n-ZnO/p-SnS core...

We have applied the perturbation theory for calculating the piezoelectric potential distribution in a nanowire (NW) as pushed by a lateral force at the tip. The analytical solution given under the first-order approximation produces a result that is within 6% from the full numerically calculated result using the finite element method. The calculation shows that the piezoelectric potential in the...

The output of a piezoelectric nanogenerator (NG) fabricated using ZnO nanowire arrays is largely influenced by the density of the surface charge carriers at the nanowire surfaces. Adsorption of gas molecules could modify the surface carrier density through a screening effect, thus, the output of the NG is sensitive to the gas concentration. Based on such a mechanism, we first studied the respon...